Midseason area football awards
Somehow, the high school football regular season is halfway over. In some states, it's barely Week 3, with the playoffs a long way off, but here in Ohio, the playoffs are just five weeks away.
Through the first five weeks, the top teams in central Ohio have made statements about their quality, some teams have been surprises — some that have outperformed expectations and some that have underperformed — and countless players have turned in impressive performances.
At the halfway mark, here are some awards for the top players and teams in the Columbus area so far.
Best quarterback: Tyler Buescher, West Jefferson
It didn't take much discussion to settle on West Jefferson senior Tyler Buescher as the best quarterback. He's been the starter for the Roughriders, coached by his father Shawn, since Week 8 of his freshman year, and his statline so far this season has been eyepopping.
Through five games, Buescher has completed 121 of his 164 pass attempts for a completion percentage nearing 75%. He has 1,641 total passing yards, the second-most in the state, and is averaging 328.2 yards per game, with 15 touchdowns and just one interception.
Buescher already broke West Jefferson's career passing yards record last year when he hit 5,807 yards, and he's now nearing 8,000 in his career.
“He's a hard worker,” Shawn Buescher said. “Any kid that we've ever had that puts in that amount of time and studies the game has been able to have some success. He deserves all that he gets.”
Best running back: Carson Gresock, Upper Arlington
Upper Arlington senior Carson Gresock hasn't quite matched his unbelievable game to open the season, when he broke the Golden Bears' single-game record with 384 yards on 29 carries, but he's a threat to score just about every time he touches the ball.
He has 832 total yards on the season, with an average of 9.7 yards per carry, has scored 15 touchdowns and only has one game with fewer than 100 yards. Upper Arlington has won its last two games by a large enough margin that Gresock's day was pretty much over by the end of the first half, but Gresock demonstrated against Reynoldsburg in Week 1 that he's capable of putting his team on his back and carrying them to a win.
Reynoldsburg coach Buddy White knows that all too well.
“He dominated the game against us more than any other player that I can remember dominating us,” White said. “Early in the game, he was still getting yards, but we were bringing him down. By the time the fourth quarter came around, it was like he hit a whole different gear . ... I'm just glad that he's doing that to other teams, too, and it wasn't just us.”
Best wide receiver: Trey Saunders, Hartley
Trey Saunders' average of nearly 100 receiving yards per game — 97.4, to be exact — is impressive enough on its own, but the senior is also averaging just under 25 yards per catch. He's racked up 487 yards on just 20 catches this year, with a long of 81 yards and five touchdowns.
His numbers are nearly a mirror image of Harrison Payne's stats at Teays Valley, but Saunders gets the nod here for putting up his numbers against tougher competition.
Best defense: Bloom-carroll
Bloom-carroll has given up 41 points through five games, including one shutout. The Bulldogs held Jonathan Alder to just three points in Week 3, and Alder went on to score 40 or more points in its last two games.
The most points Bloom-carroll has given up, 17 in Week 1 against Highland, is just over six points below Highland's average for the season.
“Our defense has been really, really good over the course of the last five weeks,” Bloom-carroll coach Wade Bartholomew said. “Just being able to keep us in ball games and hold teams to very limited points.”
Best kicker: Aiden Ighnat, Hilliard Davidson
Aiden Ighnat made a statement in Week 2 when he kicked a 51-yard field goal that split the uprights right down the middle and looked like it had the distance to be good from at least 55 yards. In that game, he was also 4-of-4 on extra points and downed his one punt inside the 20-yard line.
In Week 5 against Thomas Worthington, Ighnat made all five of his extra points, made a 31-yard field goal, had touchbacks on three of his five kickoffs, downed one punt inside the one-yard line and downed the other inside the 20.
On the season, he's averaging around 40 yards per punt, with nearly all of them landing inside the 20-yard line.
Best win: Gahanna over Hilliard Darby
If Hilliard Darby had soundly beaten Gahanna in Week 5, it wouldn't have raised many eyebrows. Darby was 4-0 and coming off a win over crosstown rival Hilliard Davidson, while Gahanna had its Week 4 game canceled due to COVID-19 protocols and wasn't sure it would have enough players back to be able to play the game at Darby.
But the Lions built a two-score lead early and managed to get Darby quarterback Blake Horvath, one of the most experienced and effective quarterbacks in central Ohio, off his rhythm.