Buckeye Bucks Football

From the GAZETTE by Albert Grindle, Staff Writer

Fans of the field goal — are you reading this, Romeo Crennel? — better realize how lucky they are in 2008. Medina County football has four standout kickers, and it could be the best group all-time as Highland’s Eric Duale, Cloverleaf ’s Chris Matejka, Wadsworth’s Matt Reed and Brunswick’s Jeff Kravetz all have big-play ability. 

Duale is the best of the bunch. While he stands just a tick below 5-foot-9 — he’ll tell you he’s 6-foot­something — the senior and three-year starter has a cannon connected to the lower ride side of his body. He’s been clutch, too, which separates him from the pack. Against Cloverleaf last year, he chipped in a 26-yarder that turned out to be the only points of the game. Friday at Tallmadge, Duale slipped on the muddy turf but still managed to split the uprights from 27 yards out with 29 seconds remaining. The boot, which gave the Hornets a 3-2 victory, would have been good from nearly 50.

Matejka is arguably the Colts’ best kicker since Ross Brunello in the late 1980s. Brunello holds nearly every school record, includ­ing hitting a 46-yarder against Buckeye in 1989. Matejka already has a 43­yarder under his belt. Considering how Cloverleaf finds a way to make seem­ingly every contest close, look for the senior to have his shot at glory. The craziest part about Matejka is he never even attempted to kick a pigskin until this summer. Now that’s talent. 

Kravetz, Brunswick’s kicker for its postseason run last season, has been nearly flawless. He is 17­for-18 on extra points and 1-for-1 in field goals, a 33­yard boot against Brecksville. With the way the Blue Devils methodically move the ball up and down the field, he probably won’t get a ton of field goal chances, but you never know. Reed grew up around the county’s all-time lead­ing booter, his older broth­er Nate, and even took over the No. 4 jersey to continue the family legacy. A starter since he was a freshman, Reed, now a jun­ior, is on pace to shatter break the county’s extra point record— Nate holds the mark with 89— and has never given Wadsworth rea­son to worry about its spe­cial teams. Nate Reed is nowa pre­season All-MAC performer at Kent State. Don’t be sur­prised if you see Matt Reed playing on Saturdays in 2010. 

Pirate chatter

My adventures around area gridirons took me to Black River for three quar­ters last Friday. The Pirates failed to disap­point with a 28-8 Patriot Athletic Conference victo­ry over Oberlin. The first impressions weren’t good. Art Stevenson Field looked like a ghost town, with a surprising lack of filled seats on the home side. The field-level area around the concession stand did have plenty of minglers, but it isn’t the type of scene everyone is used to seeing in Pirates Country. On top of that, when Black River came out of the locker room, it was a shocking sight to see near­ly 10 gimpy players with­out pads. 

In the game, however, Black River showed plenty of good things. The defense was partic­ularly impressive, espe­cially down lineman Talon Wood and middle line­backer Jon Sas. Both are 6-3 sopho­mores with plenty of clas­sic black-and-gold grit. Wood completely shut down any outside play the Phoenix wanted to run and Sas was laying big hits all over the place. Both showed their age — Sas misread a few plays and Wood over-ran some off-tackle power runs — but other than a shaky secondary, Black River looked nothing like a unit that had given up more than 380 yards per game coming in. The great news is the defense is going to get better and better and better. Offensively, the Pirates showed some promise as well. 

Sophomore tailback Matt Joppeck runs much, much bigger than his 5-9, 170-pound frame and fel­low 10th-grader Jacob O’Connor — anyone else sensing the theme here? — was electric in open space. Physically and mentally, the youthful O-line needs some work, but if there’s any area that’s bound to improve with experience, it’s up front. Overall, the Pirates looked eerily similar to Highland’s 2006 team. 

Back then, the ultra­young Hornets were taken to school by the best teams on their schedule, but played very competitively with everyone else. Two years later, Highland is the best team in the county that doesn’t have blue uniforms. That’s the road Black River appears to be taking, and it’s one with a very appealing destination that coach Al Young wishes was sooner rather than later. 

Thinkin’ out loud 
It’s becoming more and more evident that not everyone is putting two and two together under­standing the words that are crossed out in this weekly piece. It’s a joke, not an edit­ing job gone wrong or any­thing else along those lines (pun intended). Basically, the theme of phrases (usually adjec­tives) crossed out are meant to be funnier than politically correct mumbo jumbo that rules newspa­pers as a whole.

More people have come up to me on the street say­ing they love it, so, like elections in the great United States are sup­posed to be based on, the people’s vote counts. … Generally speaking, this column has morphed into a near-exclusive foot­ball one — not that there’s anything wrong with that — but Medina boys golfer Gavin Kruchan deserves some recognition. While helping the Bees stretch their amazing con­ference winning streak to 57 matches last Thursday, the senior sported a red, white and blue ribbon on his uniform in memory of Sept. 11, 2001.  What a classy move. … Give football beat writer Brad Bournival credit. He finds a way to whip out a magic potion in his basement to witness close games. 

Week 3’s Brunswick­Brecksville tilt saw the Blue Devils gain 383 yards. Guess how many yards Brecksville had? Yep, 383. The rushing yards weren’t far off, either, as Brunswick gained 213 to the Bees’ 209. 

Week 4’s Tallmadge­Highland tilt saw each squad gain 173 yards. The best part? The Hornets had just one more play from scrimmage (48-47). Oh, and did we mention both games had win margins of one point? (Brunswick 38­37, Highland 3-2). This pretty much guar­antees Friday’s Brunswick-Normandy tilt will be a complete statisti­cal blowout. 

Might be a stretch, but I’ll put my small salary on the Blue Devils. … Hat’s off to Medina after picking up its first win of the year in a 22­0 demolition triumph against Brush. The best news on the offensive side was a running back finally gave Pat O’Boyle a break had a good game as Jake Arthur rumbled for 74 yards on 11 carries.

The meat of the sched­ule is coming up, though, so it’s the defense’s turn to rise to the occasion. … Here’s hoping Cloverleaf fans don’t indulge in a loaded bacon-covered cheeseburger with a side of bacon-covered cheese fries before taking in a Colts game. They’re playing too many close games for arteries to stand. … In case anyone was wondering, the aforemen­tioned Highland­Tallmadge contest was the county’s first-ever 3­2 game. It was only the eighth time an area school won by allowing two points. 

Here are the other instances: 2002 Brunswick­Middleburg Heights Midpark (21-2), 1993 Buckeye-Highland (6-2), 1978 Black River­Wellington (14-2), 1973 Medina-Brunswick (20-2), 1963 Buckeye-South Amherst (14-2), 1955 Wadsworth-Orrville (22-2) and 1921 Medina-Valley City (21-2). 

Since I’m on a roll with useless stats, Medina is the only county team to win a game 2-0. The Bees pulled the trick a surprising three times. The first was against Berea in 1926, the next was 1937 against Wellington and the last was 1943 against New London. … Finally, Wadsworth’s defense deserves some love. After yours truly crit­icized the Grizzlies for not being able to stop the run, they responded by keeping Revere totally in check. Since I’m a self-pro­claimed county homer — although it would be more work for us, I wish every area team made the play­offs (my boss would kill me if it happened)— maybe I should do this more often. 

Yo, Medina, show me something. Grindle may be reached at agrindle@ohio.net or 330.721.4043.