The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Kirtland continues to raise the bar
Hornets will go for four straight state titles this season; seniors can compile 57-0 career marks with another undefeated championship season
“57 and 0 would be pretty cool, but we know we have a lot of work to do if we want a chance to do that.” Kirtland senior Mason Rus
Just because you set an initial bar — an initial goal — doesn’t mean you can’t continue to raise it.
Such is life in the Kirtland football program.
When Coach Tiger LaVerde took over the program in 2006, he pondered the possibility of playing in a state championship game someday.
Maybe.
It’s safe to say the bar at Kirtland has been reset over and over again over the past 15 years.
By 2011, the Hornets had not only played in a state championship game, they won one.
So the bar gets reset.
In 2013, Kirtland won another title, so again the bar was raised to win two in a row.
That goal came to fruition when the Hornets won back-toback crowns in 2018 and 2019.
The bar was raised to a threepeat, which was achieved a year ago.
When the Hornets take to the field for their season opener on Aug. 20 against Harvey, they will do so not only with a 41-game winning streak and three straight state titles, they will do so with another bar of achievement in front of them.
Four state titles in a row, seven titles in the past 11 years and the goal of sending off this year’s senior class without a single loss to their names.
It’s Kirtland — so why not aim high?
“Our senior class has never lost a game. That’s a big burden to carry, but we’d like to keep it that way,” said senior Mason Rus. “57 and 0 would be pretty cool, but we know we have a lot of work to do if we want a chance to do that.”
Kirtland is coming off a COVID-shortened 2020 season that saw it finish 11-0 and annihilate Ironton, 38-0, in the Division V state championship game.
Along the way they — for the first time in program history — beat a pair of Division I teams (Solon and Shaker Heights) in the regular season, as well as a convincing win over eventual Division IV state runner-up Lake Catholic.
The Hornets have not lost since the state championship game in 2017, when they fell to Maria Stein Marion Local, a loss they avenged a year later.
When the moment is the biggest, Kirtland has played its best, including:
• A 16-7 Division VI state championship game win over Marion Local in 2018 when the Hornets shut down the defending state champs.
• A 17-7 win over Ironton in the Division V championship game in 2019 over Ironton in a battle of the top-two ranked teams in the state, and;
• The 38-0 bludgeoning of Ironton in the rematch last year.
“You look at the last three state-title games, and I don’t know if we could have played much better,” LaVerde said.
“We gave up a total of 14 points in three games, committed a total of three penalties and didn’t turn the ball over.
“When you play good teams and don’t make mistakes, you give yourself a chance.”
The challenges this year for Kirtland are multi-faceted, including: • The Hornets for the first time have moved from the smaller CVC Valley Division (where the teams they face are Division V or Division VI) to the larger CVC Chagrin Division (made up of predominantly Division IV teams).
• Kirtland fielding its least-experienced team in recent years, with only three starters returning on each side of the ball.
• A target that gets bigger each and every year Kirtland comes home with a gold state championship trophy tucked underneath its arm.
“We know going in each week what we’re going up against,” said George Prusock, an All-Ohio lineman a year ago as a sophomore. “There are no easy run-throughs. Everybody wants to knock us off. We have to be ready for that if we want to keep this thing going.”
“But at the same time, that doesn’t bother us.”
Neither does the lack of experience.
Offensively, the only returning starters are linemen Jonathan Withrow and Prusock, along with 6-foot-4 receiver Gage Sullivan.
Defensively, the returning starters are Rus and Joseph Coleman, along with Sullivan at safety.
A lot of first-time starters will take the field Week 1 against Harvey, though many have gotten playing time in recent years.
Despite returning only a handful of starters, there are a total of 18 returning letter winners who have valuable minutes in recent years in backup roles.
Among that group of youngsters itching to make their mark on varsity is a new backfield of quarterbacks Pierce Boyd and Ramon Lescano — who are in a starting quarterback derby — and new runners such as Macguire Boyd, Tommy Gogolin, Rus and Lescano (should Pierce Boyd start at quarterback).
“They’re young and tough. They’ll run hard,” LaVerde said of his new backs. “And the line, those are tough kids too. We’ve got Withrow and Prusock back, (guard) Brennon Braud was a state-placer in wrestling and Jimmy Pekar and Mason Vermilye are big, strong kids. I really like this offensive line.
“We just can’t turn the ball over. That’s my biggest thing.”
The defense is typical Kirtland defense — smallish yet ferocious. Sullivan (190 pounds) is the heaviest projected starter — and he’s at safety.
The front three of Daven Patel, Robert Laney and Scott Haymer averages 175 pounds.
“Besides that year we had (300-pounder) Jack Bailey on the line, we haven’t been that big on defense,” LaVerde said. “We use stronger, faster guys. Do your job, get in your gap and control the line of scrimmage and we’ll be just fine.”
The “stronger” part is a badge of honor for the team, as always. The offseason weight-lifting program of strength and conditioning coach Ray Sullivan is the linchpin to Kirtland’s success.
“It starts there,” Gage Sullivan said.
“We have a great group of younger guys preparing. We’re good at what we do and have great teamwork with the younger players. It shows with the hard work we do in the weight room.”
No matter how big the winning streak gets, and no matter how many state championship banners are hung, the Hornets remain hungry.
There’s always something to improve upon, LaVerde said.
“We make mistakes every day in practice, or like our first scrimmage at North,” said the Kirtland coach.
“There’s no one on our team who thinks they are as good as they possibly can be. They all make mistakes every day. We just have to correct them, and if you do that, you’ll give yourself a chance.”
LaVerde isn’t one to rest on laurels, nor one to look back at how far he and the program have come since he took over the squad starting with the 2006 season.
The Hornets enter this season 185-17 (.916) under LaVerde, with six state championships and three state runner-up finishes in the past decade.
A byproduct of that success means that each year the bar gets raised a little higher.
Can Kirtland reach the next bar of going undefeated again, pushing its winning streak to 57-0 over the past four years and hanging Banner No. 7 on the wall?
No one is predicting, only preaching the importance of remembering what it took to get to this point.
“There’s a high ceiling of expectations,” LaVerde said, “but it comes down to focusing on a daily basis. Every snap, every day counts.
“These guys are driven every single day. It’s 365 (days). But our only focus right now is kickoff Week 1 against Harvey.
“If you look any further than that, that’s when you get bit in the butt. If we take care of today, then take care of tomorrow, then the day after — and we’re successful doing that — then hey, we’ll see where it takes us.”