The St. John Central Fighting Irish have to be the story of the prep football season thus far.
Coming into the year, most had the Irish pegged for another long season.
Three wins might have even been a stretch for most to grant the Irish of Coach Scott Holt.
The Irish are now 3-4 on the season, and while the playoffs aren’t in the equation for the Irish the fact that they’ve won three straight games is something to build on.
“Obviously, our kids have played a lot better fundamentally than they have in the recent past,” Holt said. “I am most proud of how they played against teams of equal ability.”
Holt – who came to St. John after a successful stint as an assistant at Wheeling Central – has the Irish believing. Going onto the field thinking you can win and be competitive is a huge step for the Irish. This team has been blown out only twice all season and those teams, Bridgeport and Madonna, are just superior ball clubs.
However, the Irish lost a toughie to Conotton Valley and were competitive against Paden City. When you’re trying to rebuild a program from the depths, those kinds of games are confidence builders.
The Irish have had to dance to all of the tunes thus far as well. They held on to win a game against Bishop Donahue, rallied to beat Van on a late scoring drive and then last week took a physical ball club at Valley. “The amazing thing was how we won all different kinds of games,” Holt said. “That’s a confidence factor. The first one is obviously special, and the last two were the ones where you had to find something and that’s where you start building confidence.”
Holt took a job at the Bellaire-based school that few others wanted and after the 0-10 campaign, many thought he’d bail out on the Irish and leave them to start over once again. That wasn’t the case.
“It never crossed my mind to leave,” Holt admitted. “I am glad to be a part of the St. John Central community. When you walk into the school and see the people’s faces it’s kind of been validated because everyone is really upbeat now.”
From my vantage point, that could prove to be a big mental lift for the Irish players. When you struggle and watch a coach walk away it makes it even tougher, but when a coach sticks around like Holt did, it’s an immediate pick-me-up for the players.
The remainder of the Irish schedule has three tough games with the Rosecrans visiting Nelson Field in Bellaire this Saturday in a 2:30 p.m. contest, which is a change from the original schedule. Parkersburg Catholic will visit Perkins Field in Bridgeport in Week 9 before ending the season with rival Shadyside at Nelson Field.
“The next three weeks we have to understand that we’re going against teams that are above where we are right now,” Holt offered. “We’re going to do what we can to surprise some people, and we just have to take care of football and give it our best shot.”
Regardless of their record when the season ends in three weeks, the Irish have something to build upon and the confidence could carry over to other sports, which have been struggling.
“Hopefully, this helps to re-energize everything around St. John,” Holt said. “The general attitude of everyone I run into has become more positive. A couple of weeks ago it was doom and gloom, but it’s really started to pick up.”
BUCKEYE LOCAL FOR REAL
A lot of people around the Ohio Valley are having a tough time believing that Buckeye Local is for real. I am becoming more and more of a believer each week. The Panthers play sticky defense and efficient offense, which has formed a winning combination and has led to a 5-2 mark thus far.
The Panthers opened the season with the much-talked about win over Martins Ferry, which opened a lot of eyes, but it was their win last Friday at Harrison Central, which did the trick for me.
Buckeye Local doesn’t do anything flashy. Coach Ron Pobolish has called his team a blue-collar group on several occasions. However, it’s tough to get anything going against them. They are a physical, hard-hitting team, which makes it tough on opposing offenses.
While Pobolish doesn’t like to talk about it or probably even think about it, the Panthers are in the thick of the playoff chase in Divison III, Region 11. The win over the Huskies vaulted them into seventh place, but the Panthers are far from out of the woods seeing they’ve got a road trip to explosive Union Local on the horizon this week.
WEEK AHEAD
Playoff positioning is start to be the talk of area football fans as the season enters its eighth week. That’s hard to believe first off that we’re already into the eighth week of the season. There is some truth to the cliche that says the high school football season is the fastest 10 weeks of the year.
Anyway, several key battles dot the card this week as teams try to not only sew up spots, but begin to set their sights on earning an opening-round home game in the playoffs.
Martins Ferry and River appear to be headed toward the playoffs and have a strong chance at home games. Both teams sit atop their region. The Purple Riders have really come on as of late. Their offensive line gets better each time out and their skill players are taking advantage.
The Riders will look inch closer to the Buckeye 8 and OVAC titles this weekend when they host St. Clairsville, which has won three straight since dropping two in a row.
River, meanwhile, remains in PVC play the rest of the season, starting this week with a visit from Coach Tim Wilson’s Shenandoah Zeps. The Pilots’ remaining opponents have a record of 5-16.
Union Local is another that’s right in the thick of the playoff chase and the Jets will face another team in the thick of it this week with Buckeye Local coming to Morristown. The Jets are fourth in Region 15 this week, while the Panthers have moved into the seventh spot in Division III, Region 11.
Harrison Central – fresh off its loss to the Panthers – will look to get back to its winning ways and it will need to it wants to be a part of the post-season party for the first time ever. Harrison heads to Indian Creek Friday.
Shadyside will look to get back to its winning ways when it hosts struggling Toronto for Homecoming festivities. The Tigers were upended by Youngstown Christian Saturday evening, but are still sitting in second in the computer poll behind the aforementioned Pilots.
SHOWDOWN
FIZZLES
Last week, in this space, we tried to profess that Wheeling Park’s trip to Steubenville would be similar to all of the rest of the times these two football programs, which are light years a part, battled.
And lo and behold it was. The Big Red steamrolled the Park to a tune of 41-7. Park put up a good fight in the first half, but the Big Red doesn’t beat themselves, they are sure-tacklers, they take care of the football and just do all of the little things that football teams do to be successful.
Like a wise buddy of mine once told me, ‘You won’t get rich betting against Steubenville.’
There’s so much truth to that. Each week, people think could this be the week that Big Red loses, breaking its streak of 57 wins in a row? Well, we know there’s going to be a time when Big Red loses. It has to happen and some thing it’s going to be this week at Poland Seminary, which spent most of the season atop the Associated Press Division III state poll.
Well, we beg to differ. Poland is coming off a tough 10-7 loss to Warren Howland and the Big Red just keeps getting better and better. Dwight Macon and Branko Busic have formed one of the Ohio Valley’s nastiest backfield combinations. And those two aren’t alone, but deserve all of the credit they receive.
Couple those guys with the smothering Big Red defense and what you’ve got the makings of is a team, which could very well show up on Thanksgiving weekend at Canton’s Fawcet Stadium, the site of the Division IV state title game.
I guess we’ll just have to play a game of wait and see for that. This I know for sure, Reno Saccoccia – who the Nailers will create a likeness of in a bobble head later this winter – won’t let his team look ahead.
WIERZBICKI RETURNING TO OHIO VALLEY
Ted Wierzbicki, a 1985 Bridgeport High graduate, is brining his Columbus St. Charles Cardinals football team back to the Ohio Valley this weekend to meet Steubenville Catholic in a late pickup for both schools. Steubenville Catholic was in need of a game when the FCI Academy opted to cancel its season before it even got started in August.
The Cardinals were already open on this date and had been looking all over the place for a game, but with his ties to the Ohio Valley Wierzbicki and Catholic Central head coach Gregg Bahen got the one-year deal done.
Don’t think Wierzbicki is going to let a trip to his hometown go by with just playing a football game. The Cardinals will make the little over two-hour jaunt to the Ohio Valley en route to Steubenville. He plans on taking his team past Perkins Field and the Bridgeport Schools to show them about the blue-collar attitude that the Ohio Valley possesses and also to show them where their head coach grew up.
Before heading to Harding Stadium, the Cardinals will take in a pre-game meal at 1 p.m. at Abbeys on Wheeling Island. Weirzbicki has also decided to include some of his former classmates in the weekend. Kelly Rine – St. Clairsville’s athletic director and Bridgeport High graduate – and Jay Meager will join the Cardinals for dinner.
Weirzbicki isn’t the only Ohio Valley connection on the St. Charles’ staff. Nate Bobek – a Shadyside High graduate – is on the coaching staff. Rich Porter is the Cardinals’ statistician and he, too, is a Shadyside graduate.
PICK PARADE
The race to be known as The Times Leader’s Pick Parade Champion sorted itself out somewhat this past week.
First-year member of the Parade, Mike Palmer took sole possession of the lead after posting an 11-2 ledger, which gives him a game lead on this writer and Mark Dierkes. Kim North – who completed the four-way tie a week ago – fell on a bit of hard times, suffering through an 8-5 week.
Last week’s guest picker – former Bridgeport Bulldog standout Bill Glitch – went 9-4 as the representative from Belmont-Harrison Career Center.
This week’s contest appears in today’s edition.
Staskey can be reached at sstaskey@timesleaderonline.com