2019 – 20 League Preview: Eastern Buckeye Conference

The Eastern Buckeye Conference is an athletic conference spanning schools from Stark, Carroll, Columbiana and Mahoning Counties. The high schools comprising the league include Alliance, Canton South, Carrollton, Marlington, Minerva, Salem and West Branch. <strong> </strong> <strong>5 Players to Watch:</strong> <strong>(schools are as of last year – unless PGH is 100% certain that a player has enrolled elsewhere)</strong> Peyton Alazaus – West Branch Kyla Jamison – Salem Allison Lacher – Marlington Echo Mayer-Kutz – Salem Morgan Dalton – Canton South <strong> </strong> <strong>4 Thoughts:</strong> West Branch – with their tradition and one of the top home court advantages in the entire state – returns some key contributors, as they try to take back the conference championship that alluded them last season. Peyton Alazaus is an outstanding shooter that will stretch defenses for 4 quarters and Carly Scarpitti, Jessica Bock, Maddie Showalter and Emma Egli should provide more than enough firepower to win a lot of games. After winning the conference championship last winter, one could argue that Salem is the favorite to bring home the crown in 2019 – 2020. They will be led by Kyla Jamison, Echo Mayer-Kutz, Casey Johnson, Abbie Davidson, Jaden Hamilton and Abby Perry – making them extremely deep and very versatile on both ends of the floor. Canton South will have no easy task replacing Megan Mitchell and Sophia Talkington. They will most likely start with Morgan Dalton and Makayla Smith, while hoping that some newcomers provide some much needed scoring. Allison Lacher and Leah Springer from Marlington, Mackenzie Fletcher and Raelynn Thomas from Alliance, Malina Moore from Carrollton and Coletta Miller and Elyssa Imler from Minerva are all potential impact players this winter in the EBC. <strong> </strong> <strong>3 Big Games: </strong> Salem @ Chippewa on November 29^th West Branch vs Chippewa @ The Classic in the Country on January 20^th Lake @ Canton South on February 8^th &nbsp; <strong>2 Fun Facts: </strong> We highlighted Echo Mayer-Kutz from Salem and Morgan Dalton from Canton South as “players to watch” in a section above. It should be noted that not only do these 2 shine on the hardwood, but also in other sports – Mayer-Kutz was last year’s EBC player of the year in volleyball, while Dalton earned that distinction in softball. The EBC contains 7 schools from the old Northeastern Buckeye Conference – with the only school not joining the EBC being Louisville. South Range was initially thought to be the 8^th school in the new EBC, however – their school administrators decided to join the Northeast 8 Athletic Conference instead. &nbsp; <strong>1 League Champion Prediction:</strong> West Branch