2025 Eastern Ohio Youth Basketball Winter League Heartland Christian Lions

Coaches,

Reminder that Rosters will lock tongiht. Please make sure everything is correct for your rosters. Bare with me on all the changes. There are so many moving parts because of high school teams playing on Saturday. All changes that I could make have been made at this point.

The Ohio Lakers staff will be doing All-Tournament selections for the Gold Brackets, players will be selected and pictures taken after games of the Semi-Final and Championship games. The All-Tournament team consists of 6 total players- 1 player from each losing semi-final team and 2 players from the teams playing in chamnpionship games.

Good Luck in the Tournament!

Coach Huckshold

Coaches,

Reminder that Rosters will lock tongiht. Please make sure everything is correct for your rosters. Bare with me on all the changes. There are so many moving parts because of high school teams playing on Saturday. All changes that I could make have been made at this point.

The Ohio Lakers staff will be doing All-Tournament selections for the Gold Brackets, players will be selected and pictures taken after games of the Semi-Final and Championship games. The All-Tournament team consists of 6 total players- 1 player from each losing semi-final team and 2 players from the teams playing in chamnpionship games.

Good Luck in the Tournament!

Coach Huckshold

Coaches,

Please continue to check your schedule, I am sure with High School tournament games we will have some schedule changes over the next couple days.

Thanks,

Coach Huck

Everyone,

The brackets have been posted for the championship weekend. There was a lot of moving parts with brackets and teams deciding not to play. We reviewed and adjusted the brackets to what we felt was as fair and equitable as possible. Any teams pulling out of the tournament after Wednesday may turn into byes for the team they are scheduled to play unless we can adjust the brackets.

Please check your division to insure that you are on the brackets and have a scheduled game. If you "opted out" of the tournament please double check to make sure you are not on the brackets in case there was a miscommunication.

REMINDER TO MAKE SURE YOUR ROSTERS ARE CORRECT ONLINE. YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ADJUST ROSTERS ON THE PRINTED SCORESHEETS THIS WEEKEND.

Thanks,

Coach Huckshold
330-853-2312

PREVIOUS ROSTER MESSAGE!!!

Coaches and Parents,

Please read this message carefully, We are sending this message to all coaches and parents so everyone is informed. Everyone, please help remind your team coaches or youth directors to make the necessary updates. Every session, we have it happen where a coach doesn’t update their roster and has issues during the tournament.

The brackets will be posted soon for the end of year tournament Feb. 22nd and 22rd. Only seeding, not the full brackets with teams. Those will populate at the conclusion of the regular season.

We need notified BY SUNDAY FEB. 9TH ONLY if one of the following is occurring:
1. Your team is not playing in the tournament
2. You have two teams in an age group, but will only have one in the tournament

ALL TEAMS ARE IN THE TOURNAMENT UNLESS YOU NOTIFY ME OF ONE OF THE TWO THINGS ABOVE.

BRACKETS:

All divisions and pools will be divided into multiple brackets depending on how many teams are in that division/grade. Depending on the number of teams, we may have Silver and/or Bronze brackets as well in age groups.

AWARDS:

For all gold brackets, we will give out medals to the winner and runner-up. For the second time, we will give out medals to the WINNERS only of any Silver or Bronze brackets.

ROSTERS:

All rosters will be locked for the tournament. Coaches will be able to make adjustments on their coaches account until 10pm on Feb. 19th. After this time, coaches will not be able to update rosters. Whatever prints on the scoresheet will be the only players allowed to play. Every session, we send this message out multiple times and it still happens where a coach does not update the roster and players are not allowed to play in the tournament.

Tournament Roster Rules:

1. Players can only play on ONE team regardless of division. If a player currently plays on the 3rd grade team and the 4th grade team, they will have to choose which team they want to play on. Players CANNOT play on two different teams in the tournament.

2. For the tournament, coaches cannot adjust the scoresheet to add players or change numbers.

3. Everyone needs to look at their rosters now and make updates. The site directors are reporting multiple teams with incorrect numbers as well as writing players names and numbers on the scoresheets each game. For the tournament, you will not be able to add/remove/adjust the scoresheets.

4. Rosters - All rosters should be adjusted to reflect only the players playing on that team. Remember a player CANNOT play on multiple teams for the end of year tournament.

5. Any players that do not meet the eligibility requirements are not allowed to participate in the end of year tournament. Please review the rules. If you play a player that is not eligible, you will forfeit that game. You can make players inactive on your roster. BASIC RULE OF THUMB - IF YOU DO NOT ATTEND THAT SCHOOL YOU CANNOT PLAY IN THE TOURNAMENT FOR THAT TEAM.

6. Scorekeepers will not allow write-in players for the tournament. All adjustments need to be made in your coaches account.

7. We are going to give everyone to 10pm Feb. 19th to get any changes submitted.

8. COACHES WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO ADD OR CHANGE THE SCORESHEET THE DAY OF THE GAME! What prints on Friday Feb 21st will be the only players allowed to play in that game. We know this has been mentioned before but please take the time to review rosters online and make sure they have the correct info.

Please double check and make sure you have your info correct in your coaches account. Schools that have multiple teams in a grade make sure you have your rosters set up correctly. Coaches, Please double check your numbers as well, if the player is listed with the wrong number they will not be eligible to play unless a technical foul is accessed as well as player name verification is done.

Teams with multiple teams in a grade that are playing as two teams. Please make sure you have your rosters divided correctly in your coaches account. Example, if you have all 14 players listed on both the Red and the White team. You should adjust the roster to have them 7 and 7(or however you want to divide them) If you do not fix this and the red team plays first all 14 players on that score sheet are not eligible to play on another team.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. We would rather you ask and confirm then not ask and risk a forfeit.

Coaches and Parents,

Please read this message carefully, We are sending this message to all coaches and parents so everyone is informed. Everyone, please help remind your team coaches or youth directors to make the necessary updates. Every session, we have it happen where a coach doesn’t update their roster and has issues during the tournament.

The brackets will be posted soon for the end of year tournament Feb. 22nd and 22rd. Only seeding, not the full brackets with teams. Those will populate at the conclusion of the regular season.

We need notified BY SUNDAY FEB. 9TH ONLY if one of the following is occurring:
1. Your team is not playing in the tournament
2. You have two teams in an age group, but will only have one in the tournament

ALL TEAMS ARE IN THE TOURNAMENT UNLESS YOU NOTIFY ME OF ONE OF THE TWO THINGS ABOVE.

BRACKETS:

All divisions and pools will be divided into multiple brackets depending on how many teams are in that division/grade. Depending on the number of teams, we may have Silver and/or Bronze brackets as well in age groups.

AWARDS:

For all gold brackets, we will give out medals to the winner and runner-up. For the second time, we will give out medals to the WINNERS only of any Silver or Bronze brackets.

ROSTERS:

All rosters will be locked for the tournament. Coaches will be able to make adjustments on their coaches account until 10pm on Feb. 19th. After this time, coaches will not be able to update rosters. Whatever prints on the scoresheet will be the only players allowed to play. Every session, we send this message out multiple times and it still happens where a coach does not update the roster and players are not allowed to play in the tournament.

Tournament Roster Rules:

1. Players can only play on ONE team regardless of division. If a player currently plays on the 3rd grade team and the 4th grade team, they will have to choose which team they want to play on. Players CANNOT play on two different teams in the tournament.

2. For the tournament, coaches cannot adjust the scoresheet to add players or change numbers.

3. Everyone needs to look at their rosters now and make updates. The site directors are reporting multiple teams with incorrect numbers as well as writing players names and numbers on the scoresheets each game. For the tournament, you will not be able to add/remove/adjust the scoresheets.

4. Rosters - All rosters should be adjusted to reflect only the players playing on that team. Remember a player CANNOT play on multiple teams for the end of year tournament.

5. Any players that do not meet the eligibility requirements are not allowed to participate in the end of year tournament. Please review the rules. If you play a player that is not eligible, you will forfeit that game. You can make players inactive on your roster. BASIC RULE OF THUMB - IF YOU DO NOT ATTEND THAT SCHOOL YOU CANNOT PLAY IN THE TOURNAMENT FOR THAT TEAM.

6. Scorekeepers will not allow write-in players for the tournament. All adjustments need to be made in your coaches account.

7. We are going to give everyone to 10pm Feb. 19th to get any changes submitted.

8. COACHES WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO ADD OR CHANGE THE SCORESHEET THE DAY OF THE GAME! What prints on Friday Feb 21st will be the only players allowed to play in that game. We know this has been mentioned before but please take the time to review rosters online and make sure they have the correct info.

Please double check and make sure you have your info correct in your coaches account. Schools that have multiple teams in a grade make sure you have your rosters set up correctly. Coaches, Please double check your numbers as well, if the player is listed with the wrong number they will not be eligible to play unless a technical foul is accessed as well as player name verification is done.

Teams with multiple teams in a grade that are playing as two teams. Please make sure you have your rosters divided correctly in your coaches account. Example, if you have all 14 players listed on both the Red and the White team. You should adjust the roster to have them 7 and 7(or however you want to divide them) If you do not fix this and the red team plays first all 14 players on that score sheet are not eligible to play on another team.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. We would rather you ask and confirm then not ask and risk a forfeit.

Thanks,

Coach Huckshold
330-853-2312
coachhuck@ohiolakers.com

Coaches,

I hope it was a good first weekend for everyone. The schedule has been completed. League record - 248 teams and 1235 regular season games. There will be tons of changes over the coming weeks. Do not get frustrated with changes because you may be asking for adjustments as well. There were over 1300 total schedule requests.

A few things with the schedules and requests

There are some situations where your team may be off a weekend. There may not be a matchup that weekend or your matchups do not fit the remaining gyms available.

Schedule Requests:
You will start to see some schedule requests not met as weeks are posted. There was close to 600 games that had opposite schedule requests either time or day off requests. The games must be played, so we moved as many as possible to the end of the session.

Brackets:
We will post brackets at a later date. The tournament is the weekend of Feb 22nd. and 23rd.

Division Changes:
In some divisions, we received multiple requests to "move down". We will continue to observe divisions, but in some cases we would have ended up with only 4 teams left in the A pool. This does not make sense. We are going to look at matchups as the season progresses and possibly adjust some matchups to include some crossover games for the bottom teams of A against the top teams of B. We will have multiple brackets at the end of the session tournament Gold, Silver etc..

Rosters -
If you had to manually write in names or adjust numbers on your scoresheets, please go back into your coaches dashboard on the website and update your roster to the correct information.

CHANGES:
DO NOT SEND ANY SCHEDULE REQUEST CHANGES TONIGHT PLEASE!

You can submit requests via email to both of these email addresses. Please do not text me changes they get lost in the process.

coachhuck@ohiolakers.com and columbianaboysbasketball@gmail.com

I fully understand that some of you may be in other local tournaments. Please submit your league game times to them so they can adjust their schedule. It is way easier for a 30 team tournament to adjust thier schedule rather than a 250 team league in most cases.

League Fees:
Please turn a check in at Salem to the Gate person on a Saturday or Sunday or go back into your dashboard and pay the fees online. Please make checks payable to Ohio Lakers.


Best Swishes,

Coach Huckshold
330-853-2312

Coaches,


We are excited to kick off the Winter Session of the youth league season. The Eastern Ohio Youth Basketball League is the biggest youth league in Ohio. We are excited to announce that we are over 247 teams for this January-February fall session. This email will cover just a few important things, schedule requests, important dates, and payments.

Schedule Requests:
All schedule requests must be submitted via email at this time. Our form collected schedule requests for this session. We use these to import into the scheduling software. This form was active for a week. Once we start to schedule, this form will not be used for additional requests. Please be aware, this form is for submitted "requests". We do our best to honor all requests, but sometimes requests cannot be honored. We have 6-7 weekends to get 1250+ regular season games played. Here are a couple situations that we run into often that your request may not be honored:

1. There is a matchup where one team requests before 2pm games and the opponent requests after 2pm games. We will schedule these games at 1pm,2pm, or 3pm. We try to hit right in the middle.

2. There is a matchup where one team requests no Saturday games and another team requests no Sunday games. The game has to be played, so we will flip a coin and play the game on the day based on the coin toss. We try to put these games at the end of the session so teams have time to prepare.

3. K-1-2 games in Salem. We are rotating these “lower hoop” games each weekend between Saturday and Sunday. It makes for a smoother transition to play these games a full day rather than half days both Saturday and Sunday.

Fees:
CHECKS MADE PAYABLE TO OHIO LAKERS
(DO NOT TURN IN AT SCHOOLS ONLY IN SALEM)

Must be turned in before your first game. The fee is $415 (cash or check payable to Ohio Lakers). Please give to the person that is collecting gate and they will make sure that it is given to the onsite administrator.

Waivers:
All waivers should have to be digitally signed and submitted. Paper waivers will not be accepted this season. A misspelled or incorrect email is the most likely cause for not receiving a waiver digitally. All waivers were re-sent this morning.


Rules:
Please review the rules on the link below. We will be sending out further information soon. It is very important to review the coach and parent conduct sections.

Here is the link to the Rules:

https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vTkHNpqRfDyNZX80lhNJ3GZtPGm0Zto6U4j7PaU_oTcPoNScTuFbvezQHvMWRuIXtL9wQgUQTuAFLP6/pub

Rosters:
Just as an FYI, the website is our communication center. All info entered for parents and coaches is what the system utilizes to send out all communications. We know it is a pain for coaches to enter all the emails and phone numbers into the system, but it is a one time task. Your login will keep all that info for all future sessions and future years. Example, if you enter the info for your 3rd grade team, you will only have to update/add/delete any players for future sessions. Most coaches entered random numbers that may or may not be correct. The names and numbers you have on your roster under your account is what prints on the scoresheets. We have already printed the scoresheets for this weekend. You will be able to make adjustments to the scoresheet before your game to adjust numbers or add players. If this is a permanent change, please adjust your roster under your coaches account to ensure that future score sheets are correct. Very early reminder, you will not be able to adjust the paper scoresheet for the tournament, the roster that prints must be correct for the end of session tournament.

Inclement weather:
Any cancellation of games will be done by communicating through the website. We will send out a message informing everyone if any games are canceled.

We are excited for a great youth season.

Best Swishes,

Coach Huckshold
330-853-2312
coachhuck@ohiolakers.com

Coaches,

Week 1 schedule is posted. Please review the schedule. The schedule could possibly change, DO NOT SEND SCREENSHOTS of schedule to your parents. Point all of your parents to the APP. Search app store for Ohio Lakers. The schedule can and will change occasionally. We were able to meet almost all schedule requests.


Waivers:

We still have a number of players that have not signed the digital waiver. Please go into your coaches account and confirm email addresses are correct for all players. Digital waivers must be signed for all players before participating in the league.

Schedule Requests:

There were over 1200 schedule requests submitted. Obviously, we are unable to accommodate all requests. We do our best, but the schedule is an endeavor. Don’t be alarmed if you are not scheduled for a game this weekend. We had teams that requested off this weekend or we did not have a matchup for all teams to play.

Payments:

All league fee payments are due before your first game. The cost for the league is $415 any checks please make payable to OHIO LAKERS. You can login and pay with a credit card as well.

Scheduling:

There are some situations where teams playing have opposite requests of each other (one before 2pm and one after 2pm), we will put this game in the middle at 1-2-3pm. Teams should only play at one location each day, with the exception of Salem Community Center and Salem Centerplex. If you are playing at two different locations on the same day let me know via email @ coachhuck@ohiolakers.com.

We will be sending out additional information this week to the entire league. All parents, players, and coaches will receive this email containing all league info. The plan is to work throughout this week to finish the schedule. We will post the remainder of the schedule next week or sooner. We are excited for the upcoming season. This is the largest session in league history with 246 teams.

Any questions don’t hesitate to ask!

Thanks,

Coach Huckshold
330-853-2312

Coaches,

Welcome to the league! We still have a lot of teams in the process of registering, but wanted to get some info out to you guys.

Below is the link to the schedule requests. Please do your best to only submit one time. Multiple submissions can cause confusion. Reminder, you can select certain days off or before 2pm/after 2pm.

https://form.jotform.com/243603954575161

If your team is listed on the website currently, we have received your registration successfully. If you do not see your team, you did not complete the registration or there was possibly an issue during your registration.

VERY IMPORTANT:

It is imperative that you enter the correct contact info parent email and phone number for your players. All waivers will be submitted through the website. A link to the digital waiver is sent to the email address for each player. Every session, we have coaches that shortcut and put their info in for all players. This year, all your players will have to complete the digital waiver or they will not be allowed to participate. This is a change from past years where we utilized a paper waiver. Please take time to check the contact info for all of your players, the link to the digital waiver will be going out soon.

We are excited about the upcoming session starting Jan. 4th. We will be sending out multiple emails over the next couple weeks. Stay tuned for additional information.

Thanks,

Coach Huckshold
330-853-2312