The George Auten Invitational was conducted in mostly rain at Ellet High School, yet North won the boys title and Firestone won the girls crown.

North won the boys meet with 155 points and Firestone (118) edged Ellet (117) in the girls meet.

North senior Troy Burgan was the boys meet high-point scorer with 32 points after winning the 110 meter hurdles and the 300 hurdles. Burgan also placed second in the long jump and fifth in the high jump.

The Vikings won two relays: the 3,200 (Steve Triola, Davon Coman, Shaun Cummings and LaRue Wimley) and the 400 (DeMonte Powell, Lase Brooks, Antuan Logan and Larry Dawson).

Brooks, a senior, also won the 100 and 200.

“We had prom last night and had everyone show up today in the rain, which was nice,” North coach Tom O’Neil said. ‘”They are an extemely dedicated senior class.”

Firestone senior Nia Johnson won the 3,200 and the Falcons won two relays: the 800 (Julie Kostura, Monique Ransome, Courtney Carter, Rachel White) and the 1600 (Alex Olmedo, McKenna Morton, Courtney Carter, Kachay Hullum).

“Our team has worked very hard this season and they are very deserving of this victory,” Firestone coach Malia Milec said. “I am confident that they will continue their success.”

Kenmore’s Shanequa Williams won the girls 100, 200 and 400.

Ellet, Archbishop Hoban and Firestone rounded out the top four teams on the boys side. Hathaway Brown and North placed third and fourth on the girls side.

Al Huge has been selected to become the next varsity football coach at Nordonia High School. He formally will be announced at a news conference at 2:15 p.m. Tuesday.
Huge (pronounced Hew-gee), a former player at Nordonia, previously has been the Knights’ defensive coordinator.
He succeeds Jason Hall, who resigned in early April to become the varsity coach at Massillon High School.
At the time he resigned, Hall said he recommended Huge to become his replacement.

It was a long day of softball for the St. Vincent St Mary softball team. The Fighting Irish played three games in the Elyria Classic Tournament, winning two. The Fighting Irish lost to Midview 7-2 in the first game.  

Senior Olivia Mathews made it all worth while in the second game. The senior hit a game-winning grand slam home run to cap a seven run seventh inning rally and help the Fighting Irish defeat Oberlin 9-7

Mathews added a triple in third game. St. V-M beat North Olmsted 9-2 in their final game of the day.  

Manchester High School junior Ashley Harbarger pitched a perfect game Friday and led the Panthers to a 1-0 softball victory over Dalton in the Champions Challenge at Loudonville.

Harbarger recorded seven strikeouts and also contributed as a hitter by getting a single. She improved her season record to 8-4 and the perfect game was her first in her high school career.

Harbarger’s performance outshined a solid effort by Dalton senior Andrea Arney, a University of Akron softball recruit. Arney, the Bulldogs top pitcher and hitter, struck out five batters and her record this season is also 8-4. Dalton has won the past two Division IV state championships.

The Malone College baseball team seems to be peaking at the right time. With just six games left on the season, the Pioneers are riding a 13-game winning streak and look to wrap up the American Mideast Conference this weekend in a doubleheader at Mount Vernon Nazarene.

The Pioneers are 33-9 and ranked No. 20 in the latest NAIA Coaches’ Top 25 Poll. They won the National Christian College Athletic Association Division I Championship in 2006.

The roster is peppered with plenty of local players like Chris Mandeville (Tuslaw), Zach Winkhart (Canton Central Catholic), Ryan Baechel (Glen  Oak), Adam Boudler (louisville) and Zac Barson (Canton South) just to name a few. Here is the complete roster and here is complete statistics for the season.

Although boy’s high school volleyball still falls behind other states — like California, Illinois and Pennsylvania – it is headed in the right direction.

In fact is quite incredible to see the steps that people like Scott Ebright, the executive director of the Ohio High School Boys Volleyball Association, and Hoban coach Matt Mihelic, who doubles as president of the OHSVBA, have made for the sport.

Those two, along with many others, have helped develop an entire association that runs concurrently to what the OHSAA does, making for a seamless transition for when or if boy’s volleyball becomes a sanctioned sport in the state of Ohio. You can check it out the hard work for yourself at this site. 

Boy’s volleyball is much more fast-paced and athletic then I thought it would be. Ebright described the sport to me as “explosive.” While I am not willing to go that far yet, I would say that it is an exciting sport that the fans seemed to get into at Hoban High School.  Watching senior Jojo Sokol go above the net and scorch kills past St. Edward’s defenders was a sight to see in itself.

Three Firestone football players will be continuing their careers in college next season, and two at the same school.
Trevor Kennedy, who was a first-team All-City performer at quarterback, will play at Mercyhurst (Pa.) College, along with receiver Jeffery Brantley. Meanwhile, Ross Davis, a running back for the Falcons, will be a preferred walk-on at the University of Akron.

The three players helped the Falcons (7-2, overall and 6-0 in the City Series) win the outright City championship for the first time since the school opened in 1963 and started playing in 1964.

John Dickerson, a Canton native, will retire from his position as assistant commissioner of the Ohio High School Athletic Association on September 19.

Dickerson is a 1960 graduate of Canton Lincoln High School, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Mount Union College in 1964 and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Akron in 1969. He also is a member of the Lorain County Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame, the OSSCA Hall of Fame and the OHSAA Officials Hall of Fame. He was a registered football official in Ohio for 41 years, which included officiating 14 state championship games.

The OHSAA announced that the deadline for applications for the position is May 2, by noon and that finalists will be notified by Commissioner Dan Ross no later than May 16.

The City Series baseball teams will not have a four-team playoff at the end of the regular season. One veteran City coach said there may have been the perception on the outside that the reason the league did away with the playoff system several years ago was because the district was going through financial difficulty, which forced cuts in extracurricular activities.

The district passed a levy which helped bring back those extracurricular activities that were cut. But Ellet coach John Sarver said the levy had nothing to do with the elimination of the playoff system.

Sarver said it all started a few years back when the basketball teams decided to drop the four-team playoff system and instead just play the championship game between the top two teams. That change was implemented because the basketball teams, in putting together schedules each season, had to factor in the possibility of playing in the semifinal and/or championship games. That meant coaches could only schedule 18 games (OHSAA rules allow for 20 regular season games) in case they made it to the City playoffs. But if a team didn’t make the playoffs, they would have only played 18 or 19 games during the regular season.

So the baseball teams decided to follow suit and drop the playoff system, allowing the coaches to schedule two additional games in place of the two dates they would have reserved for the playoffs.

Incidently, OHSAA rules allow 27 regular season baseball games.

The voice message said, “”You have reached Jason Hall, head football coach at Nordonia High School…”

Hall will quickly be changing that message to, “”You have reached Jason Hall, head football coach at Massillon High School…” if he hasn’t already.

On Thursday, Hall, 33, resigned as head coach at Nordonia after leading the Knights to a 10-2 record and an appearance in the Division I state semifinal game. Hall’s announcement ended weeks of speculations that he was the top candidate for the Massillon job, which became available when former coach Tom Stacy took the head coaching job at Green.

From the tone of Nordonia athletic director Rob Eckenrode’s voice, it appeared that Eckenrode may have been taken aback somewhat, considering Hall had coached Nordonia just one season. Maybe Eckenrode and the Nordonia supporters that Hall would spend more time there. But the high-profile Massillon job seemed to be too enticing for Hall to pass up.

“”I wish Jason luck,” Eckenrode said.

When asked if he thought Hall would leave, after hearing rumors that Hall was a leading candidate for the Massillon job, Eckenrode responded, “”I’d rather not comment. I need to look out for what’s best for Nordonia.”

One of the names already circulating as a possible replacement for Hall is actually a familiar name. It’s Keith Boedicker, who coached 11 seasons at Nordonia, compiled a 92-32 record and led the Knights to five appearances in the playoffs. Eckenrode declined to give any details as to any candidates or a timeline for hiring.

“”I’m not going to speculate on what’s going to happen next,” he said. “”Myself, the principal (Chuck Vrabel) and the superintendent (Wayne Blankenship) are going to get together and make the best possible decision for the school and the program.”

Telephone messages for Hall were not returned.[ep