PICTURED ARE two of the area’s top senior football players, who will serve as the leaders for their respective teams this season, which begins officially on Thursday. Standing is River’s Lukas Isaly, while Martins Ferry’s Dalton Hoover is sitting. Both had all-Ohio seasons in 2016. ...
By BUBBA KAPRAL Executive Sports Editor WOODSFIELD — The year was 1968. LBJ was winding down his time in the White House. Star Trek made its TV debut. And sadly, both Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. It was also marked the year Jay Circosta launched his football coaching career. Remarkably, Circosta is still going strong on the sidelines a half-century later. Legend is an overused and all-too often inaccurate-applied noun. There is no question, however, Circosta is a high school football coaching legend. The Shadyside High grad is entering his ...
By ERIC OLSON AP College Football Writer Defending Big Ten champion Penn State returns a Heisman Trophy candidate at running back and a record-setting quarterback, and the Nittany Lions generally are regarded as one of the 10 best teams in the country. They’re not even picked to win their division this season. The Big Ten East favorite, as usual, is Ohio State, which is loaded with as much talent as ever and motivated to atone for an embarrassing finish to 2016. So as great an accomplishment as it was for Penn State to go from being picked fourth in the division to winning its ...
By SETH STASKEY Times Leader Sports Editor CADIZ — There are certainly a lot of things to be excited about as it pertains to Harrison Central football. But, head coach Justin Kropka, who is entering his 13th season at the helm, prefers to temper the excitement and simply focus on the process because he knows there’s a long way to go. Though many of the faces will be different on the field this season, Kropka admitted the goals and approach do not change. “We’ve gotten (this program) to the point where we want to be competitive for postseason berths,” Kropka said. ...
By SETH STASKEY Times Leader Sports Editor MARTINS FERRY — Dave Bruney has experienced it before. He’s not one to get caught up in the number of players listed on the roster. He prefers the quality of the players listed. As the veteran Martins Ferry head coach prepares for his 39th season at his alma mater with a roster that features 42 players in grades 9-12, Bruney took a trip down memory lane to his first season as a head coach, which came in 1978 at Bridgeport. “It is what it is,” Bruney said of his team’s numbers. “We won the OVAC championship in Class 3A in ...
By RICK THORP Times Leader Sports Writer WOODSFIELD — The story of the 2016 Monroe Central football team can best be told using one number — 40.7. That’s the average number of points allowed by the Seminoles in each of their nine losses a year ago. When you figure in their one victory — a 37-0 pasting of Frontier — that figure drops to 36.7. Still, it was too much for the team’s long-time coach. ‘‘The biggest thing was we couldn’t stop anyone defensively, especially against the run,’’ veteran Monroe Central head coach Jay Circosta said this month from his ...
