Buckeye Bucks Football

From The GAZETTE, by Brad Bournival, Staff Writer

WESTFIELD TWP. — High school football isn’t calculus. It’s more like connecting the dots.

“It’s a very simple game,” Cloverleaf coach Kevin Gault said. “It’s blocking, tackling, ball management and intensity. If you can do those four things, you’ll win.”

The Colts had every facet in sweet harmony Friday and it led to a 38-7 win over an overmatched Buckeye squad in the season opener for both teams.

While five touchdowns and a field goal are enough to make even the most cynical coach happy, defense and field position are the determining factors more often than not.

Cloverleaf’s average starting field position was its own 49 in the first half, while Buckeye began from its own 27.

The Colts opened the season with a 48-yard kick return by Keegan Conry to put them on Buckeye’s 38.

That’s why it wasn’t much of a surprise to see the Colts up 17-0 at intermission thanks to scores by quarterback Cody Roberts (137 yards rushing, 2 TDs) and Conry (64 yards, TD) and a field goal by Dustin Conner.

“Field position was the big concern coming into the year,” Cloverleaf defensive end David Long said. “Last year, teams were getting the ball on the 35 or 40 and scoring quick. Field position was huge.”

In that department, the Bucks never had a chance.

After an opening 52-yard drive that netted no points, Buckeye picked up just 17 more yards before the break and wound up with only 12 yards in the third quarter.

Every time it looked like Buckeye was about to mount an attack, Colts linebacker Kyle Juszczyk would come up with a big stick or Roberts, who also plays free safety, would swat away a pass.

Buckeye finished with 162 total yards, but most of those came in garbage time.

Throw in 52- and 46-yard punts by Roberts and the Bucks never got untracked.

“There’s a chart that breaks your chances of scoring down into percentages,” Buckeye coach Billy Burke said. “The further away you start from your end zone, the less chance you have to score.”

Cloverleaf made good on its biggest chance to put the game away in the third quarter when it took over on the Buckeye 33. Long capped an eight-play drive with a 7-yard scamper.

“That definitely deflated them,” Long said. “But it was all a build up to that point. The holes our line was giving us were great. They started and finished every play.”

The Colts missed out on their first shutout since Week 3 last year (17-0, Norton) when Cory Reisner (12 rushes, 72 yards) scored from 31 yards out with 6:28 left in the fourth.

“For us to come out and win like this is great,” Roberts said. “It will bring a lot of confidence to the team at every level.

“We just need to prepare for Fairview like we did for this game.”

Bournival may be reached at wp.medina-gazette.com or bournival929@sbcglobal.net.

From The GAZETTE, By Brad Bournival, Staff Writer

Cory Reisner stands 5-foot-10 and weighs 160 pounds.

The Buckeye High junior certainly doesn’t fit the role of bruiser, but he carries the hopes of the team as the Bucks prepare to open the 2007 season tonight against Cloverleaf.

With All-Ohioan Chaz Jordan (648 yards, 11 TDs) and Nic Kalinowski (478 yards, 12 TDs) gone to graduation, the offensive load will fall almost completely on Reisner in the run-first, pass-sometimes Buckeye offense.

“Cory is one of those kids you don’t have to worry about getting excited,” first-year Buckeye coach Billy Burke said. “He’s even-keeled. You don’t have to motivate him. You don’t have to discipline him. Whatever that ‘it’ factor is, he gets it.”

Reisner really doesn’t have a choice. His brother, Chris, was an outstanding back for the Bucks, finishing with 476 yards on the ground and 10 touchdowns during Buckeye’s magical season in 2005. Cory Reisner watched mostly from the sideline that year, but did manage a touchdown and 58 yards on the ground.

Fast forward to a year ago and Reisner was option No. 3 behind Jordan and Kalinowski. He still picked up 582 yards and scored nine touchdowns.

That kind of output, combined with the fact he accounts for 64 percent of the team’s returning rushing yards (582 of 905), has put a bull’s-eye squarely on the No. 20 jersey Reisner will wear tonight.

“There’s a lot more pressure now than there was before,” Reisner said. “They’ll be gunning for me. Last year it was Chaz and ‘Kal.’ I’ve always had that mindset where teams will have to stop me, but it’s not just me. It’s the entire team they have to stop.”

Reisner has had the best of three worlds actually. A shifty back with great field awareness, the junior has had the chance to take a little from everyone he’s watched the last two seasons and mix it into his own repertoire.  He saw the patience of Jordan to not run scared and let holes open for him. He took the mental toughness and never-give-up attitude Kalinowski showed, and he picked up his brother’s ability to handle pressure.  Add it all up and you’ve got the closest thing to a true running back the game has to offer.

“It’s a luxury to have kids as athletically gifted as Cory,” Burke said. “He’s sort of like the quarterback that gets groomed. Now he’s the man, but he’s had success before.

“Any time you have a kid that can break the big play, it helps out the offense. We don’t have to pound out those 12-play drives; maybe it’s a four-play drive with Cory making the big play.”

Opportunities like that will certainly take the pressure off quarterback Jesse Horton. The senior has had his share of good backs during his tenure. Now he’s got a junior that has a few years of maturity under his shoulder pads.  Add to that a gigantic front five and defenses might find game-planning a little tough.

“He gives us that option out of the backfield as well,” Horton said. “We can dump it off to him and let him run. In our offense the run truly does set up the pass, and that takes the pressure off me.

“With him, he fills the holes and can open it up for our other playmakers. We’re well-rounded, but he takes the pressure off everyone else because he can make his own plays.”

Bournival may be reached at wp.medina-gazette.com or bournival929@sbcglobal.net.

By Chad Grant Special to The GAZETTE

SHEFFIELD LAKE — Buckeye’s football team struggled through its first three games — all blowout losses.

Friday night at Tom Hoch Field, the Bucks finally got “PAC” into the win column.

Buckeye turned in a rout of its own with a 40-7 drubbing of Clearview in a Patriot Athletic Conference cross-division game.

“We made some adjustments last week in our offense,” Buckeye coach Billy Burke said. “Now that we have that in, now we can make some adjustments off that. We opened it up so that our base offensive stuff will now work.”

Just about everything worked for the Bucks (1-3, 1-0), who rolled up 465 yards of offense en route to scoring 19 more points than they had in their first three games combined.

“We were keeping the ball on offense,” Burke said after picking up his first win as Buckeye’s coach. “We put some big drives together and that is a pretty good defense over there.”

A pair of Bucks backs had a field day in the win, totaling 323 of the team’s yards.

Junior tailback Cory Reisner got the ball rolling for the Bucks, scampering 17 yards for the game’s first touchdown. He then turned in a spectacular catch-and-run for a 57-yard score later in the first quarter.

“We’ve got the momentum going our way now,” the 5-foot-9, 160-pounder said. “We’re more confident than in our first three games. We played with a lot of heart tonight.”

Reisner totaled 154 yards on 15 touches (10.3 yards per touch) and added his third touchdown in the fourth quarter to effectively close out the game.

Shawn Cordes (8 carries, 169 yards, 2 TDs) got the momentum back on the Bucks’ side after a long drive by the Clippers (1-3, 0-1) ended at the Buckeye 2-yard line in the third quarter.

The Clippers used the arm of Zach Anderson (11-of-24, 82 yards) and the powerful running of Antwaun Carlton (22 carries, 90 yards, TD) to march 73 yards on 13 plays for a chance to cut the Buckeye lead to less than a touchdown. However, Anderson’s pass to James Washington went wide on fourth-and-goal from the 2.

After a 2-yard run on first down, the 5-foot-9, 155-pound Cordes found a huge hole in the Clearview defense on the next play and raced 96 yards untouched for a game-changing touchdown.

“The hole opened up and I went,” Cordes said. “There was great blocking and a great effort (from the offensive line).”

The score gave the Bucks a 26-7 lead and fully swung the moementum back to their side.

“What I was most impressed with is the offensive line really put it together tonight,” Burke said. “That is what we have been banking on all season and finally  we get it to pay off.”

Buckeye racked up 316 yards on the ground behind an offensive line that was finally healthy.

“We made some big strides tonight,” two-way Buckeye tackle Josh Varney said. “Last week we made some physical strides and this week we made some mental strides.”

Buckeye quarterback Jesse Horton was another beneficiary of the improvement of the Bucks up front, passing for 149 yards and a touchdown.

“You could drive a truck through some of those holes,” Horton said. “The line was blocking well and the receivers were making some great cuts. When they are making plays like that, it’s easy out there.”

Grant may be reached at wp.medina-gazette.com or sports@ohio.net.

  Most Total Offense