Toledo City League rejects Lima Senior

LIMA — Lima Senior will continue to look for a league it can call its own.

The Toledo City Athletic League informed both Lima Senior and Findlay on Tuesday that they would not be admitted to the TCAL for the fall of 2011. Fremont Ross was admitted to the league.

Lima Senior is playing in the Greater Buckeye Conference, but by the fall of 2011 that league will be down to Lima Senior, Findlay and Marion Harding.

“We’re disappointed, but we understand why,” Lima Senior athletic director Jim Offenbaker said. “It boiled down to the distance from Toledo to Lima.”

So what’s next for the Spartans?

“We’ll have a discussion with the athletic board of control and see what the options are,” Offenbaker said.

Realistically, Offenbaker said he’ll begin planning to schedule as an independent for all sports starting in the fall of 2011.

“We had held off scheduling football in 2011, waiting on this vote,” Offenbaker said. “So, beginning (Wednesday), after the meeting (with the board), we’ll begin scheduling as an independent for 2011 for fall sports. Hopefully, Findlay and Marion Harding will continue to schedule us.”

The GBC has been composed of Lima Senior, Findlay, Napoleon, Fremont Ross, Marion Harding and Sandusky.

The league will break up in the fall of 2011 when Napoleon joins the Northern Lakes League and Sandusky joins the Northern Ohio League. With Tuesday’s announcement, Fremont Ross heads to the Toledo City League.

Lima Senior has played in the Greater Buckeye Conference since the 2003-04 season.

Before joining the GBC, the Spartans spent three seasons as an independent after being voted out of the Greater Miami Conference.

Lima Senior has 531 boys, more than the mark of 518 for Division I status. It had earlier approached the Western Buckeye League for membership, but that attempt was rejected.

“We’ll keep working hard and try and find the right schools Lima Senior wants to play,” Offenbaker said. “But as an independent, our travel expenses will increase.”

From 2000 to 2002, Lima Senior’s impendent football schedule included the likes of Worthington Kilbourne, Toledo St. John’s, Zanesville, Mansfield Madison, Ashland, Cincinnati Moeller, Massillon Washington and Piqua.