High school football: Another challenging run is expected in the underrated Western Reserve Conference
Aug. 13—The first day of fall practiced awaited Kenston coach Jeff Grubich. Before heading out the door of his office, he glanced at the schedule posted on the wall of the Gurd Family Fieldhouse.
"It's a meatgrinder, man," the Bombers' head honcho said. "Week in and week out, it's a grind."
To be sure, Grubich isn't looking past his team's nonconference slate of Boardman, West Geauga, Chagrin Falls, VASJ and Lake Catholic. That five-game run has its own set of challenges.
What makes Grubich swallow hard is the list of five games that come after that. The five games that comprise the Western Reserve Conference slate.
The WRC is one of the most underrated conferences in Northeastern Ohio — perhaps in the state. It's been whittled down from departures the past few years. But the six that remain — Chardon, Kenston, Mayfield, North, Riverside and South — spend a good part of the fall beating on each other for league supremacy with high-end talent and superior coaching.
In the past five years, the WRC has boasted three state champions (Kenston in 2018, Chardon in 2020-21), four different league champions and a number of players who went on to play Division I college football while losing two former members — Brush and Madison — who left for competitive balance reasons.
As camps opened this week, three of the six league members — Kenston, Chardon and Riverside — all featured players who voiced aspirations for winning a state title this year. And none is out of the realm of possibility.
In short, the WRC is NOT for the weak, weary or faint of heart.
Just ask Grubich. When his team won the 2018 state title, the Bombers weren't even undisputed league champs. They shared it with Chardon and Riverside.
"The WRC is one of the premier conferences in the state of Ohio," Chardon coach Mitch Hewitt said."You have a wide range of sizes, great players and coaches. It's a meatgrinder, man."
The past five years might be a smallish sample size, but it confirms just how challenging (and successful) the WRC is consistently. Over that span:
—Chardon has compiled a 56-9 record, including a 17-3 playoff mark with two state titles.
—Kenston is 45-14 with a 10-4 playoff record and one state crown.
—Riverside is 37-18 with a 5-4 playoff slate.
—Mayfield is 29-22 with a 3-4 playoff mark.
—Only South (23-29, 2-4 in the playoffs) and North (13-35, 0-2 in playoff games) are under .500 over the past five years.
Number of games played varies because of the 2020 COVID-19 year when not everyone played the same amount of games.
None of the WRC's teams have a losing record in non-conference games over the past five years. Kenston is 12-3 in non-WRC games, Chardon is 11-3, Riverside 11-6, South 10-4 and both Mayfield and North 8-7.
Add it all up, and the WRC has four teams with winning records in the past five years, with five of its members winning two or more playoff games.
Madison (11-37) and Brush (4-16) struggled competitively and left the conference.
"This is my 14th year here at Riverside and last year was my first outright league championship," Beavers coach Dave Bors said. "It's brutal as heck. If you want to be an outright champion here or think you're gonna run the table, don't plan on that. There are like 4-6 teams who can be one of the favorites every year."
South's Matt Duffy agreed. He said a penalty here or there, a dropped pass, a fumble, a missed kick — something deemed insignificant — can swing a game AND a season.
"It's hard to win this," he said. "There are a lot of really good players and really good coaches. There's not a lot of margin for err."
Hewitt said a big attribute of the conference is coaching. There's little turnover in the league at the head-coaching spot or on the staffs. South's Matt Duffy is the dean of WRC coaches in his 20th year, followed by Bors' 14 and Hewitt's 13. Grubich (12), Bandiera (eight) and Dodd (eight) are also in long tenures compared to many schools in the area.
"Good players, they make you nervous as a coach," Hewitt said. "Good staffs terrify you. There are great players in this league, but it's the staffs that concern us the most. ... The lack of coaching turnover in this league is somewhat remarkable, given the lifespan of coaches anymore."
As usual, this year's WRC race looks to be a nose-bloodying slugfest for sure. In fact, three of the top five team's in this year's opening News-Herald Top of the Crop are from the WRC — Chardon, Riverside and Kenston.
Riverside returns a wealth of talent from a squad that finished 9-1 in the regular season with an undisputed league crown. The Beavers went 2-1 in the Division II, Region 5 playoffs, bowing out with a heart-wrenching 16-14 loss to Hudson.
Mikey Maloney, the reigning Tony Fisher Award winner as The News-Herald's player of the year, returns at quarterback. He has a wealth of talent around him such as 1,000-yard running back Jason Mackey and receivers Brady McKnight, Dez Kirks and Ethan Ross.
The Beavers' defense is anchored by ends Antonio Bottiggi and Dom Kirks — both Division I college recruits — and Sam Salimenin.
Over at Chardon, the words "angry" and "motivated" were prevalent the first week of practice after the 2022 season ended with a second-place WRC finish to Riverside and a 14-7 loss to Canfield in the Division III, Region 9 final ended the Hilltoppers' season.
Chardon returns most of its offense, including a gigantic offensive line, and a pair of Division I college recruits on defense in Andrew Bruce and Leo Colombi.
Kenston, which felt it let one slip away in a 10-7 loss to Chardon in a Region 9 semifinal, also has high aspirations. With Fisher finalist Sean Patrick starring on both sides of the ball, rugged Sean Doyle in the trenches and Lucas Kaltenbach back in town after playing his first two years at Benedictine, the Bombers feel they have the stuff to win a league title and make another deep playoff run.
Mayfield went 6-5 last year with a young team. Rocco Monastero returns to lead the high-paced Wildcat offense that scares the bejeebers out of league foes.
"Remember," North coach Shawn Dodd said, "Mayfield had Hoban on the ropes a few years ago. That's a really good program Ross Bandiera has over there."
The Wildcats won the 2019 WRC title and lost to top-ranked Hoban, 21-17, when the Knights threw a touchdown pass on the final play of the game to oust Bandiera & Co.
"Yeah, and we beat Riverside in overtime, Kenston went to the wire, we needed two miraculous plays by Joey Isabella to beat Chardon and South was back and forth," Bandiera said of his teams route to an undefeated WRC slate in 2019.
Only North and South haven't won a league title in the past five years, but as Grubich said, "You can't look past anyone. Heck, North almost beat us last year. Probably should have."
"It's tough," said Dodd in light of his team's close call in a 31-28 loss to Kenston last year. "There's a ton of talent and coaches in this conference."
Dodd noted he's had two Division I college linemen — Ethan Spoth (Toledo) and Ryan Baer (Pitt) in recent years, and also has a budding star in Reontae Lowery this year. But the WRC is tough no matter WHO you have, he said.
"We don't have any 6-5 kids, and Chardon's got 'em at safety," Dodd said with a laugh of frustration.
South is dangerous this year, too, with athletic Delond Moss and experienced quarterback Gabe Hanzlik.
In short, the 2023 WRC is going to be like every other conference race in the past. Will it glean another state championship or two? That remains to be seen. But this history of the conference suggests that is not out of the question.
Not with high-end talent, experienced coaching and an edge of excellence that has the whole conference on the rise.
"It's a playoff experience week after week," Grubich said. "If you don't prepare for it, you're going to be on the wrong side of it real quick."
Bandiera took it a step further.
"We think we have a chance to be a pretty good team this year and we could be 1-4 or 2-3 in the conference and STILL be a pretty darn good football team," He said. "It's insane."
