Kirtland nationally ranked

It’s the third year in a row for Hornets in MaxPreps poll

Make that three in a row for the Kirtland football team.

For the third straight year, the Hornets have ended the year as one of the top-ranked small-school football teams in the nation by MaxPreps.

Kirtland was announced last week as the No. 6 smallschool team in the nation. Last year the Hornets were No. 10 in the national according to MaxPreps, while in 2019 the Hornets were No. 5.

MaxPreps says “smallschool” designation “generally play in enrollment divisions with less than 1,000 students.”

Kirtland won undefeated state championships in each of those seasons, going 15-0 in both 2019 and 2020, and then 11-0 this past fall in a pandemic-shortened season.

“That’s pretty crazy,” said Kirtland coach Tiger LaVerde. “I don’t know how they come up with that. But I’m very proud of the kids and what they accomplished this year and how hard they worked.”

According to MaxPreps, the top small school in the nation is Southern Columbia Area (12-0) from Pennsylvania. The rest of the top five in order is Holland Hall, Okla. (12-0), Canadian,

Texas (15-1), Jim Ned, Texas (14-1) and Andale, Kan. (122-0).

The only other Ohio team ranked in the top 15 is No. 12 Coldwater (12-0), which won the Division VII state title this past fall.

“That’s really cool,” said Kirtland’s Mason Sullivan, a three-time, first-team allOhioan. “The hard work we put in means a lot and now we’re sixth in the nation.

“I think these rankings mean Kirtland is the real deal. We’re a small school, and we get things done. We’ve won 41 games in a row and three state titles in a row — it’s awesome.”

Fellow All-Ohioan Joey Grazia agreed with Sullivan’s assessment of “coolness.” He said he and his teammates — not only this year, but also in previous years — have pondered a national type of tournament.

“We were actually talking about that,” Grazia said. “It’d be cool if they could set it up to see and play some of those teams. I think we’d compete with all those schools. That’d be something great if we could do that.”

The 2020 season was loaded with impressive moments to the point that LaVerde said, “I look back at some of the things we did it; it wowed me.

“I look at Lake Catholic in Week 1 (a 31-15 Kirtland win). Lake almost won the Division IV state championship. We played and beat Division I Solon and Shaker Heights. Then all of playoffs games we played.”

LaVerde likely would never have said so during the season, but in hindsight he said games such as Lake Catholic, Solon and the 38-0 annihilation of Ironton in the state championship game all left him with the same thought afterwards.

“There were games that I thought, ‘Geez, I don’t know if we could have played much better,’” LaVerde admitted. “These kids were amazing. They surpassed our expectations by a large margin.”

Kirtland recently released its 2021 schedule, which will see the Hornets bump up to the large-school CVC Chagrin Division after previously being part of the smaller-school Valley Division.

Kirtland opens up with Harvey, Lutheran West and Beachwood before delving into the meat of the CVC schedule against West Geauga, Geneva, Chagrin Falls, Perry, Lakeside, Edgewood and Orange.

Although his high school playing days are over, Grazia said he knows underclassmen are already working toward next year.

“They know the expectations are there, and they want to meet them,” he said. “We’ve all felt those same expectations before.”

Said LaVerde of the ramped-up schedule, “We’ve played most of them before and we’re excited to play them again. It’ll be good for our kids for when they get to Week 11 and the playoffs start.”