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Home  Sports Football Preview
High School Football
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Written by J. Patrick Eaken
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Friday, 20 August 2010 10:00 |
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For six of 10 local football teams, this is the final year to win a championship in their current league.
For three of the remaining four, their league will look a little bit different in 2011.
Eastwood, Genoa, Gibsonburg, Woodmore, and Lake are competing in their final season of the Suburban Lakes League. Gibsonburg will join the Toledo Area Athletic Conference in 2011, and the other four schools will then become members of the newly formed Northern Buckeye Conference.
Clay will leave the Toledo City Athletic League after this school year to join the Three Rivers Athletic Conference. Clay is not the only school leaving the City League. For the purpose of football, three Catholic schools (St. John’s Jesuit, St. Francis De Sales, Central Catholic) and Whitmer will leave in 2011 for the TRAC.
For Waite, Cardinal Stritch, and Northwood, this is the final year in which their league will look as it does — although all three schools will remain where they are, conference-wise.
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Written by J. Patrick Eaken
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Friday, 28 August 2009 11:20 |
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Last year was a dream season for the Genoa Comets football team. It will go down historically as one of the best all-time in this Western Ottawa County town. However, the debate is already out there — are this year’s Comets going to be even better?One year ago, the Comets completed a 13-1 season that led them to the Division IV state semi-final. The Comets won their second straight Suburban Lakes League championship along with district and regional trophies.Genoa reached the final four against Kettering Bishop Alter, a D-IV parochial school which had played a heavy schedule against D-I and D-II parochial schools from central and southwest Ohio. On the field against these schools, Alter was undefeated and blowing out opponents, but it had to forfeit two games because of an ineligible player.
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Written by Mark Griffin
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Friday, 28 August 2009 11:18 |
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Coach: Joe Gutilla, first year, 0-0
Last year: 1-9 (1-4, TAAC)
Forecast: The Cardinals have a first-year coach and just one returning all-conference player, senior Kyle Gladieux, but Gutilla said Stritch has speed and a lot of heart.
“We have some solid skill position players with good speed and quickness,” he said. “We’re small up front but quick, and we will play hard.”
Stritch’s seven returning starters include Gladieux at running back/defensive back, senior quarterback A.J. Zalewski, junior two-way lineman Mike Kiss, junior lineman/linebacker David Szymanski, senior tight end/defensive lineman Zach Rodriguez, junior running back/defensive back Nick Fuller and junior lineman/linebacker Murphy Mahoney.
The Cardinals’ weaknesses are depth, size and inexperience, according to Gutilla.
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Written by J. Patrick Eaken
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Friday, 28 August 2009 11:17 |
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Coach: Mike May, second year, 2-8
Last Year: 2-8 (2-5, SBC)
Forecast: May has the daunting task of getting the Rockets back on track two years after coach Gary Quisno, who is now at Sandusky Perkins, led the program to a 224-83 record in 29 years.
May, a Vanlue native, is confident he can achieve that task, having brought with him experience as an assistant at St. Mary's Memorial in the mighty 10-team Western Buckeye League — one of Northwest Ohio's most historic and competitive leagues for bigger schools.
May spent eight years as the defensive coordinator at St. Mary’s Memorial, and before that he spent three years as an assistant coach at Elmwood. He was also an assistant coach at Ohio Northern for one year.
St. Mary's used the powerful wing-T offense, considered by many coaches to be ideal for high school football, and May is continuing to use that formation at Oak Harbor. It is also the same formation Quisno used at Oak Harbor and uses now at Perkins, so there really is very little changing of the guard the past two years in the Rocket camp.
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Written by Mark Griffin
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Friday, 28 August 2009 11:14 |
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Coach: Ken James, 24th year, 118-117 Last Year: 9-1 (6-0, TAAC) Forecast: The two-time defending TAAC champion Rangers have won six out of the last eight conference championships, but this squad would like to add “playoff participant” to its resume this season. Northwood was shut out of postseason play in ‘08 despite only one regular-season loss, and the Rangers haven’t been to the playoffs since 2004. James hopes a stellar performance against this year’s schedule, which includes non-conference foes Lakota, Lake, Hopewell-Loudon and Genoa, will be enough to make a playoff run. “I don’t think our (computer) region is going to be as loaded as last year, but we’re going to have to win eight or nine games to get in,” James said. “We wanted this schedule and we challenged ourselves, so we’re going to have at it. We’re young and we’re probably going to be erratic at times, but we’re aware that young teams get better as the year goes on. We’re excited about prospect of how we’re going to improve throughout the year.”
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