CHSL expanding into Ohio, adding five Toledo-area schools – The Oakland Press

The Detroit Catholic High School League is expanding across the border.

The 96-year-old league announced in a news release Monday it is adding five Toledo-area Catholic high schools to its current roster of 27 schools around Metro Detroit, starting in the 2023-24 school year, expanding what is already the largest association of Catholic high schools in the U.S.

The CHSL has a press conference scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday at St. John’s Jesuit High School to formally announced the news.

Along with St. John’s, the new members include Notre Dame Academy, St. Francis de Sales, St. Ursula and Central Catholic.

St. Urusla (332 enrollment) and Notre Dame Academy (390) are all-girls schools, St Francis de Sales (429) is all boys, while Central Catholic has both genders (219 boys, 209 girls). All are within the AAA division for student population, the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s largest category.

All five of the newcomers have had success on the state-wide level.

Four of Central Catholic’s eight OHSAA titles have been on the gridiron (1962, 2005, 2012, 2014).

St. Francis de Sales has won three hockey title since 2011, football titles in 1984 and 2001, and 14 titles in water polo, while St. John’s has five OHSAA titles in golf (1931, 1987, 1994) and tennis (1987, 2011) and won the Toledo City League all-sports trophy 29 times in 37 years.

St. Ursula won a field hockey title in 2010, volleyball titles in 2004 and 2010, softball in 2004 and swimming in 1983.

Nearly half of the CHSL’s current membership resides in Oakland County, including: Birmingham Brother Rice, Birmingham Marian, Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood, Clarkston Everest Collegiate, Farmington Hills Mercy, Madison Heights Bishop Foley, Novi Detroit Catholic Central, Orchard Lake St. Mary’s, Royal Oak Shrine, Waterford Our Lady of the Lakes, West Bloomfield Frankel Jewish Academy and Wixom St. Catherine.