From an attendance standpoint, Massillon’s football playoff game Friday seems too big for Big Walnut.
Seating capacity at Big Walnut’s stadium, in the Columbus suburb of Sunbury, is listed at 4,250.
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Even with temperatures forecast in the 30s, that might not be enough for a battle of legit state title contenders, flavored by the grudge-match aspect of Big Walnut eliminating Massillon from the previous two postseasons.
Big Walnut is the host team based on a higher seed. The Division II, Region 7 semifinal matchups are No. 4 New Albany at No. 1 Columbus Watterson and No. 3 Massillon at No. 2 Big Walnut. Starting now, four wins are needed to be state champ.
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Regional semis winners will play next week at a neutral site to be determined.
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Big Walnut is in charge of managing Friday’s game site, although the Ohio High School Athletic Association operates ticket sales.
Normally, when a threat of a sellout is slim or none, playoff tickets go on sale through ohsaa.org/tickets in a simple log-on-and-purchase process. For the Massillon-Big Walnut game, Massillon was notified it would get an allocation of 1,500 tickets.
Massillon’s athletic department took control of those 1,500 tickets, with the OHSAA’s blessing.
“We wanted to make sure parents of players, band members and cheer were given the opportunity to purchase those,” Washington High Brian Pachis told the Repository on Tuesday, Nov. 10. “Only those parents are able to buy tickets at the moment. If we have any tickets left after Wednesday, they will go live on Thursday.”
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For most of this week’s playoff games in seven different divisions, sellouts are not a potential issue, and tickets are available through ohsaa.org/tickets. Tickets are general admission, costing $12 for adults and $5 for students in grades K-12.
Dover’s Division III game at Steubenville is one of many examples of games whose tickets are readily available to anyone. That game will be at Steubenville’s 10,000-seat Harding Stadium.
At first, tickets for the Massillon-Big Walnut game were directly available, and quite a few were purchased. Those who bought tickets via ohsaa.org/tickets subsequently were notified that the tickets were invalid and refunds would be processed.
Buyers of the invalid tickets might be able to jump back in and get them, but that was up in the air Tuesday.
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Massillon and Big Walnut are colliding one round earlier than they did last year, when their regional championship game was played at Zanesville. The stadium had a listed capacity of 6,000 and did not come close to selling out on a miserable, rainy night.
This year, many more people from Big Walnut can be expected to want tickets, since the game is at Big Walnut. Massillon fans travel as voluminously as any, and the Tigers have one of their better teams.
Thus, ticket availability in a 4,250-seat stadium is a concern.
We will pursue this story as the week goes on. Information about standing room and who would declare a sellout could not be pinned down as of this writing.
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The OHSAA did not immediately respond to a request for information on Massillon-Big Walnut ticket topics.
When navigating to the Massillon-Big Walnut game site on ohsaa.org/tickets, there was an accompanying message that said, “Tickets are passcode-protected for this game. Reach out to your school’s athletic department for more info.”
A person answering the phone in the Massillon ticket office said lots of people had been reaching out.
The Canton Repository sports department can be contacted via email at sports@cantonrep.com.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: How will they fit Massillon-Big Walnut into a 4,250-seat stadium?
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