Hornets reload, aim for next title

Kirtland will be in Division V this season

Championships, they say, aren’t won during the season as much as they are won during the offseason. The rationale means successful teams are the ones who put in the work when no one else is watching — in the summer months.

If that saying is true, the Kirtland football team should be fine this season.

Of course, that’s not exactly going out on much of a limb seeing that the Hornets are 159-17 (.903) in the 13-year tenure of Coach Tiger LaVerde.

When the Hornets hit the practice field on Aug. 1 for their first preseason drills, they did so on the heels of a summer that saw them go undefeated in the six 7-on-7 events in which they took part.

Senior Mike Alfieri won a pair of lineman challenges — one at Baldwin Wallace and one that the University of Pittsburgh — and classmate Luke Gardner won the sprint challenge at BW with a personal record of 4.38 in the 40.

So although many position battles are open this camp for the reigning Division VI state champions, the offseason revealed one thing — long before camp opened Aug. 1.

The Hornets, with four state championships under their belts, aren’t going anywhere — except up to Division V this year after tormenting Division VI in recent years.

“State champs again,” Alfieri said. “That’s our main goal.”

A program that has hung its hat on the running game in the LaVerde era, Kirtland ran the table in 7-on-7s at Pitt, BW, Chardon, Chagrin Falls, West Geauga and Oil City. They did so with virtually an entire new cast of characters from a year, ago, with the only two returning starters on offense being lineman Alfieri and tight end Zach Samsa.

“That gives us a lot of confidence,” Alfieri said. “I don’t think any team before us (at Kirtland) went 22-0 in the summer. Especially with our quarterback situation. We’re not sure who will start. We’ve been rotating quarterbacks.

Senior Jonathan Ridgeway and sophomore Liam Powers appear to be among the prime candidates this year to take snaps.

LaVerde said he doesn’t put a lot of weight into the records his team post in the 7-on-7s. But did say he was happy with what he saw from his team prior to his camp opening.

“The offseason couldn’t have gone any better,” he said. “We competed against some really good teams. That is going to help us out this year.”

Gone this year is a decorated senior class that graduated in spring, a list that includes All-Ohioans such as running back Joey Torok, RB-LB Jake Neibecker, QB Tommy Powers and massive linemen Jack Bailey, Kalid Alabsi and Austin Fulco.

“Last year as a special group, especially those five guys up front,” LaVerde said of the offensive line. “That’s the best line we’ve had since I’ve been here. This is a new group. They work hard, but it’ll be a challenge to get five guys out there who work as one unit.”

Alfieri said he is ready to be a leader for that group, which will be young and untested aside from himself.

He has momentum on his side. Not only was he a starter last year, but he had a banner summer in which he won the benchpress competition at BW and Pitt, hoisting 185 pounds 31 times at both contests to win the lineman challenge. Gardner, who scored one of Kirtland’s two touchdowns in the Division VI state title win over Marion Local last year, opened eyes with a 4.38 in the 40.

“I was expecting to run better than I had before,” Gardner said, “but I was not expecting that.”

Soft-spoken Mason Sullivan, an All-Ohioan a year ago, also had a good summer both on offense and defense. He will anchor a defense that returns a lot of players who got varsity action. But he is the only player who started all 15 games.

“The competition (in camp) is going to be good,” LaVerde said of his defense. “Our kids are excited for that.”

As players prepared for the opening day of practice, they marveled at the plush green grass that awaited them and the crisp painted lines on the practice field way behind the school.

But that’s not the way they WANT to see the field. Their goal is to still be practicing on that field when the grass is torn up and burnt out from 15 weeks worth of practices — that would mean the team is playing in early December for what they want to be their fifth state title.

“We’ve won four state titles, but have never won back-to-back,” LaVerde said. “That’s the goal. These kids want that.”