The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
MaxPreps heaps praise on Mentor
The Mentor football team had a pretty good decade from 2010-2019, and the staff at MaxPreps noticed.
MaxPreps recently published a list of its top five most popular high school football teams per state for every state in America, based on web traffic to the MaxPreps website. Mentor was ranked No. 2 in Ohio behind Massillon.
MaxPreps also published an alldecade team for some of the highest-profile, highest-ranked teams in Ohio from 2010-2019, and the Cardinals were one of them. Listed were 10 members of an “All-Decade Team” and a handful of honorable mentions.
Steve Trivisonno had a front-row seat for all of those teams and players involving the Mentor football team as the head coach. The new decade will start this season with longtime assistant Matt Gray at the helm after Trivisonno stepped down after this past season.
But the MaxPreps love made Trivisonno smile — and also made him a little nostalgic.
“It was (like a yearbook),” he said of the lists published by MaxPreps. “It makes you go back and look at some of the film of those old days and how remarkable those teams and players were. That was fun.”
Mentor went 105-25 (.808) from 2010-19 and certainly pushed a lot of web traffic MaxPreps’ way, which got them to the No. 2 slot as far as Ohio popularity goes, just a smidgen behind Massillon. Ranked third is Pickerington Central, followed by Cincinnati Elder at No. 4 and St. Edward at No. 5.
“That’s a pretty good list, isn’t it?” Trivisonno said.
The All-Decade team selected by MaxPreps was pretty star-studded, too, led off with a Top 5 of quarterback Mitch Trubisky (Class of 2013), receiver-turned-quarterback Conner Krizancic (Class of 2014), offensive lineman Ryan Jacoby (Class of 2019), defensive lineman Noah Potter (Class of 2019) and quarterback Tadas Tatarunas (Class of 2018).
Said MaxPreps of Trubisky’s nod as No. 1, “One of Ohio’s top offensive players in history threw for 9,126 career yards and 92 touchdowns and rushed for 1,559 career yards and 33 touchdowns.”
Krizancic got a huge push at No. 2, also.
“Versatility defined Krizancic who threw for 33 career touchdowns, ran for 33 career touchdowns and caught 28 career touchdown passes,” MaxPreps wrote. “After excelling as a receiver as a sophomore and junior, he moved to quarterback senior season and
helped the Cardinals finish 13-2 and D-I state runner-up. Krizancic threw for 3,250 yards and 32 touchdowns and rushed for 1,455 yards and 23 touchdowns as a senior en route to earning the state’s D-I Offensive Player of the Year award. His attempts (55), completions (36) and yards (419) in Mentor’s 55-52 state final loss to Moeller are still OHSAA Division I championship game records.”
The second five on Mentor’s All-Decade Team were
defensive end Tom Strobel (Class of 2012), receiver Brandon Fritts (Class of 2014), current Cardinals quarterback Ian Kipp (Class of 2021), running back Alex Mathews (Class of 2016) and running back Brian Trobel (Class of 2020).
The honorable mention list includes Ryan Bischof (2017), running back Eddie Daugherty (2015), quarterback Jake Floriea (2015), receiver Luke Floriea (2020), linebacker Kurt Laseak (2012) and offensive lineman
Nick Samac (2019).
“That’s a really good list,” Trivisonno said. “We were talking with a couple of the other coaches, and there are four or five others you could put on there, too.
“It was neat to see MaxPreps do that. They came up with some great names from the past. It shows that a lot of people around the country are watching and seeing what we did, and it shows how good our fan base is and has been over the years.”