The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Elyria RB stars after death of father
Glover Jr. lost father to complications from novel coronavirus on Aug. 15
Elyria’s Lance Glover Jr. played a key role in Elyria’s 28-15 comeback win over Elyria Catholic on Aug. 20 with a pair of fourthquarter touchdowns in addition to 103 yards.
Glover Jr., a junior making his first varsity start, played five days after losing his father, Lance Glover Sr., to complications from the novel coronavirus.
“Everything was through him, he motivated me to keep going,” Glover Jr. said after Elyria’s victory. “Even though I had hurt both of my ankles, I kept going because of him.”
Glover Sr. was 52, a Navy veteran and a father of four.
The Glover family has a GoFundMe which has currently raised $6,500 of a $7,000 goal. Donations will go directly to the Glover family as they navigate the coming weeks.
The GoFundMe can be found at this link: https:// www.gofundme.com/f/ s7v2jt-support-for-theglover-family
On the field, Glover Jr. made plays when it counted.
The first of his two scores put Elyria ahead for the first time in the game. Glover Jr. took a Ryan Klotz handoff and found a hole opened by the right side of the Pioneers’ offensive line, taking it 41 yards for a score.
His next erased all doubt of an Elyria loss.
After a fourth-down pass from Elyria Catholic fell incomplete off the hands of a receiver in the end zone, running back Jasir Lucky ripped off a 55-yard run to put Elyria in the red zone. The next snap went to Glover Jr., who scored from 15 yards out.
After the game, Glover Jr. and his teammates celebrated their victory over their rivals by hoisting a trophy of a helmet with both Elyria and Elyria Catholic’s logos on it. Glover Jr. was the first to get the trophy from Elyria AD Heather Beck.
“That was a lot on a 16year old kid. But I’m so proud of him because he still came to practice every day, he still worked hard,” Elyria head coach Develin Culliver said. “I told him, Lance just go play football for your dad.”
Top performers
Columbia’s Marco Cirigliano had some rather large shoes to fill heading into the 2021 season.
The sophomore was tasked with taking over the starting role from former Raiders’ great Joe Governale, who graduated over the offseason. Governale ran for over 2,600 yards in two years for Columbia and was a key member of the team that won the secondever playoff game in school history last year.
One game into his career as the starter, Cirigliano is more than one-tenth of the way to that 2,600-yard mark.
Cirigliano, who also starred on Columbia’s state-qualifying relay teams in the spring, ran for 308 yards and five touchdowns in the Raiders’ season-opening victory over Independence.
The Columbia sophomore was one of several area players who put up staggering numbers during Week 1.
• North Olmsted threeway player Jared Kelley scored a touchdown in all three phases of the game against North Ridgeville. In the first half, Kelley scored on a 15-yard touchdown pass, intercepted a pass and returned it 33-yards for a score and housed a 55-yard punt return.
• Brookside quarterback Kenny Grobolsek led the Cardinals to a Week 1 blowout win with solid performances on both sides of the ball. Grobolsek carried the ball seven times for 44 yards, scoring on three of those carries.
He also had 16 tackles on defense with a strip-sack of the Wickliffe quarterback in the end zone that resulted in a touchdown for the Brookside defense.
• Defending Matt Wilhelm Award winner Gideon Lampron had three sacks in a Keystone win over Northwestern. Lampron had 17 total tackles and a forced fumble that ended the game from his linebacker spot.
Keystone also received strong performances from quarterback Konner Rodick and receiver Ryne Shackelford with Rodick accounting for four touchdowns. Two of those went to Shackelford who caught six passes for 102 yards, while Rodick totaled 317 yards.
• Rocky River linebacker and running back Tommy Bebie totaled over 200 yards in a non-conference win over Midview. Bebie, who is signed to play at Wake Forest in 2022, carried the ball 10 times for 153 yards scoring three times adding three catches for 53 yards.
From his linebacker spot, Bebie collected ten tackles including one for a loss.
• Avon and Avon Lake opened the season with impressive non-conference wins thanks to strong performances from juniors in their starting backfields. Shoremen quarterback Jeremy Dzik threw the ball 36 times, completing 24 of them for 241 yards and a pair of touchdowns to Matthew Stuewe.
• Avon quarterback Sam DeTillio made his debut, scoring three times and throwing for over 100 yards. Fellow junior starter Gavin Ehrhardt totaled 130 yards and scored twice, including a long score on a screen pass from DeTillio. Ehrhardt also played a key role on the Eagles’ defense that shut out Brunswick.
Split the uprights
Some of the area’s top special teamers had big impacts in Week 1 games across Lorain County on Aug. 20.
Nationally ranked kickers Nathanial Vakos, Owen Wiley and Kaiden Koch were a perfect 3-for-3.
Vakos, the starting kicker and punter for Avon, has hit 189 straight PAT’\s — including five in Avon’s 38-0 win over Brunswick in Week 1 — which is a state record. Also in the Eagles’ season-opening win, Vakos hit his lone field goal attempt from 45-yards out, with room to spare.
Less than 24-hours later, Vakos scored a pair of goals in the Avon soccer team’s 3-1 win over Lakewood.
Wiley hit from 50 yards and was also perfect on his three PATs in Avon Lake’s 24-10 win over Strongsville.
Koch didn’t miss on any of his four attempts, including three PATs and a 24-yard field goal in Midivew’s loss to Rocky River.
Vakos, Wiley and Koch have all at least received 4.5-star ratings from the Kohl’s kicking camp. Vakos is the lone five-star of the three and is the 29thranked kicker and 16thranked punter in the nation. Koch is ranked as the 69th best kicker.
Elsewhere in the County, Columbia’s Rachel Washburn hit a PAT for the Raiders. Washburn made history in 2020 becoming the first girl in Columbia history to both make an appearance and score points in a varsity football game.
A day later on Aug. 21, Washburn scored a goal and had two assists in the Columbia girls soccer team’s win over Rittman.