Elyria puts losing streak in past, looks to Lorain

First-year coach Devlin Culliver never really bothered with losing streaks because of his experience with wins.

Devlin Culliver never really bothered with losing streaks.

The first-year football coach at Elyria played his high school ball for the ultra-successful program at Youngstown Cardinal Mooney, so a losing streak was nothing he ever had to worry about or deal with.

That is until he accepted the job at Elyria and inherited a team that had lost 14 games in a row.

“I was aware of the losing streak, but we never talked about it as a team,” he said. “For me, that was something I wasn’t a part of. I wanted to leave it where it was — the past.”

But when the Pioneers failed to hold a halftime lead in their season-opener against Midview, eventually dropping a 36-22 decision, the streak reached 15 games, the longest such streak in school history.

It all came to an end Sept. 6 when Elyria took a 7-6 victory over a highly-regarded Bedford team.

“I’m happy for the kids,” Culliver said. “As a player, I had never been part of a team that went 0-10. I’m just glad to get the opportunity to get something positive for the guys.”

It certainly wasn’t easy. The Pioneers trailed at the half, 6-0.

They finally scored with 3:43 remaining in the third quarter on a 2-yard run by Jesse Stevens. Carter Pycroft added the all-important extra point, making it 7-6.

“In our first game, we had the lead, we ran out of gas, and they came back and beat us,” Culliver said.

“But we faced adversity and we didn’t fall apart. As a coach you always wonder if we got behind or someone was coming back on us, how would we respond? Would we keep fighting or would we just lay down? We fought through adversity last week, so coming into this week I wasn’t too worried about how we would respond. We just kept fighting and stayed positive.”

Then it was a matter of keeping the Bearcats off the scoreboard. Elyria’s defense was strong the entire game, holding Bedford to 196 total yards, 125 on the ground. The key defensive stand came with 4:03 to play, when Michael Knapp dislodged the ball from Bedford quarterback Dasjon Dash, with Jazariean Drummer recovering for Elyria.

“We really needed to make a play on defense,” Culliver said. “It was coming toward the end of the game and we needed to come up with a play. Our

defensive coaches called a blitz and he came off the edge and made a play.”

Now that the losing streak is over, the Pioneers are hoping to start a winning streak. In what could be considered fortuitous timing, the next game on the schedule for Elyria is at arch-rival Lorain at 7 p.m. Sept. 13.

“We have our rival game this week with Lorain,” Culliver said. “We’re going to go in there and give everything we have. We want to make that a rival game again.”

Then the Pioneers have the daunting task of facing Mentor in the opening game of the Greater Cleveland Conference slate. In the past two weeks, Mentor came from behind to defeat defending state champion St. Edward and St. Ignatius. The entire GCC is riding high after two weeks, with six teams sporting 2-0 records and two others at 1-1.

Culliver isn’t backing down from any challenges he faces as Elyria’s football coach.

“When we’re in the league, we’re going to give it the same effort and game

plan the same way we do for everybody,” he said. “The league is just like every- body else.”

Midview is 2-0

With last week’s 30-14 victory over North Ridgeville on Sept. 6, Midview won its second game in as many outings.

What’s significant about that is the Middies only won twice all of last year. However, coach D.J. Shaw is not exactly jumping for joy over the start.

“We have equaled last year’s win total, and we’re absolutely happy about that,” he said. “But we haven’t played the best the past two weeks. So, we’re looking to get a lot better at a lot of things. We’re ec- static to be 2-0. Nothing against Elyria and North Ridgeville, but I think if you had picked two other teams on our schedule, those could have been two losses. I just think we have to play better.

“We scored 36 points and 30 points, which isn’t bad and actually is higher than the goal we set for each game. But I just feel like we’ve had a lot of threeand-outs, a lot of missed opportunities.” There are two things that clearly are working this year for Midview. First, it’s the team’s defense against the run.

“One of the biggest things that’s been better this year is our defense has been a lot better against the run,” Shaw said. “It’s opened up some things for us to be able to do defensively. We can put more pressure on teams and things like that.”

Second is quarterback Ethan Surdock, who appears to be playing well beyond his years. In Midview’s season-opening 3622 comeback victory over Elyria, the 10th-grader completed 16 of 28 passes for 213 yards and three touchdowns. In the victory over North Ridgeville, he completed 16 of 22 attempts for 250 yards and two scores.

“He’s a sophomore, and he’s going to make some mistakes here and there, but overall he has been very productive and very efficient,” Shaw said. “He’s made good decisions for the most part. He made a couple really big plays in our two games that were momentum shifters for us and ultimately led us to victory. He’s been doing a great job and is just going to get better.”

Next up for Midview is Amherst, also a surprise 2-0 team after victories over Lakewood and Firelands. Last year, the Comets manhandled Midview, 58-13.

“They’re a good team,” Shaw said. “It’s going to be a good challenge for us. They kicked our butts last year really good. They’ve got a good defense and they’ve put together two good victories. It’s going to be a good test for us. It’s a huge week for our team.”