The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Kirtland clobbers way to statement start
The nonconference schedule the Kirtland football team put together this season made Hornets coach Tiger LaVerde swallow hard.
Starting the season with three bigger schools — Division IV Cortland Lakeview, D-II Riverside and D-III Geneva — was deemed somewhat of a roll of the dice for the D-V Hornets, especially with a young-ish squad that had a lot of starters to replace from a team that won the D-VI state championship a year ago.
Apparently, LaVerde didn’t need to worry.
Mason Sullivan ran for 144 yards and two touchdowns, Luke Gardner ran for 98 yards and another score, and the aggressive Kirtland defense shut down a Geneva running game that ran wild in Week 1 and Week 2, leading the visiting Hornets to a 30-0 win over the Eagles.
The game was halted with 10 minutes, 10 seconds left on the clock in the fourth quarter when coaches on both sides decided to not resume the game.
“You never know how good your team is going to be,” LaVerde said. “The defense has been fantastic. We’ve run the ball well with Mason Sullivan and Luke Gardner. The line have been very good.
“We’ve done a nice job so far.”
Against three bigger schools, Kirtland has outscored the opposition, 93-7.
The Hornets surrendered only 119 yards to Geneva, most of which came on the final drive of the third quarter before lightning halted play.
Geneva came into the game 2-0 and scored 54 points in a win over Jefferson in Week 2.
“I think it’s very important,” said Sullivan of his team’s hot, demonstrative start. “It shows we can hang with Division II and Division III schools. It shows a lot.”
Sullivan gave Geneva trouble all night. After the Eagles fumbled away their opening possession, the junior running back plowed in from one yard out for the early lead.
Geneva punted away its second possession, leading to another Kirtland scoring drive capped by Sullivan’s 17-yard run. The twopoint conversion made it 15-0.
Geneva never recovered from the slow start.
“We started horribly,” Eagles coach Chip Sorber said. “We turned the ball over on our first possession. From there, it just got worse. It was a meltdown. We didn’t get it done tonight.”
Kirtland took a 22-0 lead on the first play of the second quarter when Liam Powers floated a corner route to Anthony Demarco for a score.
Another scoring opportunity evaded Kirtland late in the half when the
Hornets lost a fumble.
On its first possession of the third, Gardner went 10 yards for a touchdown, pushing the pile the final five yards to get into the end zone. Gardner’s twopoint run made it a running clock situation from then on.
“Mason is a special back. So is Luke,” LaVerde said. “I’m glad they’re on our team.”
Kirtland’s defense shackled Geneva’s top running back, Blake Peet, who entered the game with 264 yards rushing. Peet was limited to 20 yards on the ground.
Bullish Charlie Taylor ran for 83 yards to lead Geneva, most of which came in the third quarter.
“We though their main guy were Blake, No. 5, and 35 Charlie,” Sullivan said. “We tried stopping those guys. I think we did an excellent job of doing that.”
With the win, Kirtland runs its winning streak to 18 in a row. The Hornets’ last loss was in the 2017 state championship game.
Cuyahoga Heights, a DVII state final four team last year, travels to Rogers Field next week.
“They’re a tough team,” senior lineman Mike Alfieri said. “It’s a conference game, so we’ll study hard this week. It’ll be a good game.”
Having tasted defeat for the first time this season, Geneva turns its focus to CVC play against visiting Orange in Week 4.
“It’s a new season now,” Sorber said. “We’re better off with 2-1 this year than last year when we started