Chaney loses 2 players to Michigan, hands Marlington Dukes first 2023 loss

LEXINGTON TWP. — The previously unbeaten team from the country knew exactly what to make of the team from the city.

"They were very, very, very fast," Marlington quarterback Bryson McCord said after Friday night's 14-6 high school football loss to the Youngstown Chaney Cowboys. "They were fast, and they were disciplined."

An ongoing Youngstown City Schools strike didn't slow down the Cowboys.

A 73-yard pick six in the game's first minute put the Dukes in deep water against what McCord called "the best defense our school has seen since the playoff year."

McCord was talking about 2018, when he was a sixth-grader watching a 35-10 postseason loss to Canfield.

The 2023 Dukes, 3-1, have plenty of chances to make 2023 a happier ride than last year, when they fell 35-10 to Chaney and were 0-7 before beating Minerva for their only win.

New head coach Joe Cardinal, 42, is becoming less a mystery man than he was when he was hired seven months ago.

Who is this guy?

In the late 1990s, Cardinal played quarterback and defensive back for Sebring High School.

He vividly remembers his final game:

"It was Play 3 of Week 5 of my senior year. It turned out I tore my ACL, my MCL and my meniscus, but all I knew was that my knee felt really weird. I went back in the game. Why? Maybe it was adrenalin."

Postgame diagnosis: It was a season-ender. Young Joe decided not to pursue small-college football, so it was a career-ender.

"Being from a small town, I wanted to go somewhere big where it would be a new experience," Cardinal recalls.

The result was four years at Ohio University. His post-graduate travels took him to western Ohio and Tennessee.One memorable job was co-defensive coordinator for a high school just outside Nashville. He helped the Ravenwood Raptors win Tennessee's 6-A (big-school) state championship in 2015, when they beat the Maryville Red Rebels, who were on a 44-game win streak.

"It was a great experience," he said.

He yearned for an old experience. He wanted to go home, and he got fairly close in 2022 when Northwestern High School in Wayne County hired him as head coach.

He steered the Huskies to a 9-3 record, a year after they went 3-7. But Northwestern was 70 miles fom Sebring. He jumped on a chance to be much closer.

Marlington is in the general area where Cardinal's dad instilled his love of football and where he played at Sebring for a coach he reveres, Brian Coffee, now the principal at West Branch.

Head coaches have come and gone at Marlington lately, including Scott Gabelt (2014), Beau Balderson (2015-18), Mark Gulling (2019-21) and Phil Mauro (2022).

Community and school administration have sparred over passing levies versus cutting expenses.

Nine months before Cardinal was hired, voters defeated a five-year, $7.6 million levy by a 2,645-1,354 tally. Five months later, after budget cuts, a five-year, $3.2 million renewal levy passed, two and a half weeks after the football team ended a 1-9 season.

New year. New coach. Perhaps a long-timer.

"The last place I coach football will be at Marlington," Cardinal said. "I've known Marlington people and how great the community is.

"When you have a community backing you and kids who want to put the work in, it was a no-brainer to come here. I'm truly grateful they gave me the opportunity."

His fourth game at the helm was a loss, but not a demoralizer.

"Our speed definitely showed," said 5-foot-7 Chaney burner Bryson Douglas, who ran 25 times for 131 yards. "But they were tough. They had a good blitz. They were disciplined. They're hard hitters."

The Dukes kept plugging despite going nowhere on the ground (24 carries, 23 yards). They trailed 14-0 for about 75% of the game but scored with 1:06 left on a 10-yard pass from McCord to Beau Himmelheber.

"We've got a team of fighters," Cardinal said. "We fought to the last second."

Marlington is close to home for Cardinal. It already was home for other recent head coaches.

Balderson was a standout Marlington player. Gabelt spent 31 years as Marlington's head baseball coach and just as long as an assistant in the football program. He became interim head football coach in 2014 when Ed Miley resigned three months before summer practice.

Gabelt was a bridge from Miley, who went 56-21 in seven years, and Balderson, who led the Dukes to a 10-0 regular season in 2016. Miley and Balderson woke up what Gabelt always thought of as "a sleeping giant."

Weighing its own program against the Cowboys was fascinating for Marlington.

Chaney dropped football in 2011 and brought it back in 2019, when former Massillon coach Rick Shepas was athletic director.

Shepas brought in Chris Amill as head coach, with former Youngstown State assistant Seth Antram as offensive coordinator. Antram left to be head coach at Boardman on 2021 but returned to Chaney as head coach in 2022 after Amill moved to North Carolina.

"I did some research," Antram said. "The similarity of my background to the Marlington coach's background is interesting."

Antram played at a small high school (Crestview), didn't play college football (studying at Youngstown State) and spent years out of state (in North Carolina) before following his heart back home to Ohio.

Antram's 2022 Chaney team featured Michigan recruits Jason Hewlett and DJ Waller, who led the Cowboys to a 10-2 year. The highlight was a Game 5 win over Canfield, which otherwise went 14-0 and won the Division III state championship.

With Hewlett and Waller gone to Ann Arbor, Chaney dropped its 2023 opener 14-13 to Akron East before not playing in Week 2. Week 3 brought a 21-13 win over Boardman. The Cowboys won again Friday as a Youngstown teachers strike wears on.

"It's not the ideal situation," Antram said, "but our guys are getting better and better at rolling with adversity and making the best of the situation.

"You can see Marlington is a disciplined team that's buying into the system. In their wins, they controlled the tempo against Warrensville, Northwest and Manchester. That goes to discipline and confidence. They play like a veteran team."

Cardinal's top scouting concern on Chaney was a dominant defensive line. It showed up right away when pass-rush pressure resulted in a hurried throw and 73-yard interception return for a touchdown by Darius Stonework.

More pressure and another hurried throw led to another interception ending the Dukes second series. Senior QB Drew Gault then finished a 50-yard drive with a 7-yard touchdown run.

Chaney threatened to make it worse than 14-0 before Duke sophomore Malcum Salyers stopped a drive with an interception just before halftime.

The Dukes' big chance followed a bad snap on a Chaney punt and a first-and-goal from the 2. A fumble on an inside run squashed the threat.

The score had been 14-0 for quite a while when Marlington's Bryson Jones stopped a Chaney drive with an interception. The Dukes still had a pulse when Qwintin Hancox stopped another Chaney drive on a sack with eight minutes left.

Chaney hung on. Marlington goes on having gained a new perspective.

"If we're going to win in the playoffs," quarterback McCord said, "that's the kind of team we'll have to beat."

Reach Steve at steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @sdoerschukREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Youngstown Chaney football hands Marlington first loss of 2023