MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK
Winter Week 9
3-4-2013
Basketball
March Madness
Solon Sectional Final
The Wildcats started their run for a possible state championship last Friday,
Mar.1, against Cleveland JFK (12-19) in a game at Solon HS. The Wildcats built
a 44-24 lead at the intermission, then put the game away with a 27-9 third
quarter en route to an n 84-50 victory.
St.
Ignatius will meet Cleveland Heights
this Wednesday at 7:00PM in a Solon district semifinal game.
You can catch all of the Wildcats March
Madness action on the SIBN. However, per
OHSAA regulations, the SIBN will only be able to provide audio coverage of the
playoffs.
JJHuddle Predicts Eric Frantz of JJHuddle has issued his predictions
for this year’s basketball tournament.
In Division I he has picked the Wildcats (JJH #5 in D-I) to win the
Solon district/sectional, but he has chosen St. Ed’s to win the Cleveland regional. His Final Four is composed of St. Ed’s, Toledo St. John’s,
Westerville North and Cincinnati Walnut Hills, with Westerville North winning
it all. I am a little surprised that he
does not have Columbus Northland, the last undefeated team in D-I, at least in
the Final Four.
New Record - with an * As reported in the last MMQB, the Wildcats 19
regular season victories are a new regular season record for the Cats. However, that was made possible in part due
to the fact that the regular season was expanded this year from 20 to 22
games. The all-time record for wins in a season by
the Wildcats is 25, accomplished during the 2000-2001 season when the Wildcats
won their only (so far) state championship and finished with a record of 25-2.
State and National Poll This week MaxPreps
has St. Ignatius #5 in the Div. I and #275 in the country, putting the Cats in
the top .01% of the nation.
All-Star Wildcats guard Francisco Santiago has been selected
to play in the Ohio High School Basketball Association’s North-South all-Star
game on April 21 in Columbus. Santiago,
one of the premier players in the state, is averaging 15.9 points per game, 4.4
assists, 1.7 steals and 2.8 rebounds while shooting 49% from the field and 74%
from the charity stripe.
Hockey
State Playoffs This will be
quite a different state hockey tournament as two of the biggest names in Ohio high school hockey
fail to get out of district play.
District Semifinals The
Wildcats were favored to go deep into the state tournament, but like last
season under a similar scenario, the Cats bow out of the tournament way too
early. Facing off against Rocky River (26-7-1) last
Tuesday night, the Wildcats outshot the Pirates 49-19. Based on that stat one would have thought
that the Cats had won the game easily.
But that did not take into account an outstanding game in goal by Rocky River‘s
Jake Nicholson, who put on a Houdini-like performance in turning away 48 of
those shots. In fact, the Wildcats did
not score until there was just over three minutes remaining in the game, and by
then it was pretty much too late. Of the
Pirates 19 shots, against two St. Ignatius goalies, three found the back of the
net to give the Pirates an insurmountable 3-0 lead after the first two
periods.
This is the
second season in a row that the Wildcats have exited the state tournament
early, last year losing in the district finals.
District Finals With
the Wildcats out of the tournament many of us, and you can include MMQB in that
group, felt that St. Ed’s now had a huge obstacle to its championship hopes
removed. Not so fast Mr. Hockey
Puck. The very next day the Eagles took
on Holy Name - and lost in 5 overtimes, 3-2.
“Jinx” Continues No matter how good a team the Wildcats put on the
ice, they have never been able to win both big tournaments in the same season. MMQB is referring to the Baron Cup and the
state tournament. Last season the Wildcats
won everything in sight as they went on a 39-0 run, winning the Baron Cup but
losing to St. Ed’s in the district finals of the state tournament. This season the Cats (29-6-3) again won the Baron
Cup, but fell in the tournament even earlier, dropping a district semifinal
game to Rocky River.
Football
Awards Two Wildcats
were recipients of awards by the Cleveland Touchdown club Charities. Senior RB Tim McVey was awarded the Pat
O’Brien High School Student Service Award.
Former Wildcats and John Carroll quarterback Mark Myers received one of
the College Division MVP awards.
Big Visitor? When the Wildcats play Paramus Catholic at Byers Field
during Week 5 this coming season don’t be surprised if you see a few older
gentlemen wearing the scarlet and gray, including head coach Urban Meyers, in
the stands. Paramus defensive back Jabrill
Peppers is the #2 rated player in the Rivals Top 100 for the class of 2014, and
one of the schools at the top of his list is Ohio State. As loyal Wildcats fans may recall, back in
2004 then head coach Jim Tressel came to Byers Field to watch the Wildcats take
on Buffalo St. Francis and one of their top players, also a DB who was being
recruited by the Buckeyes.
Wrestling.
State Tournament The Wildcats’ Tommy Ziegler (126) finished third in
last weekend’s state wrestling tournament.
This is the third time in his Wildcats wrestling career that Tommy has
landed on the podium at the state meet, and his highest finish. Anthony McLaughlin (170) finished sixth. Jimmy Ferrito (113) qualified for the
tournament but did not finish in the money.
Hot Stove league
Although the Indians may not be
odds on favorites to win the World Series this coming season, there is no
reason why we cannot do a Hot Stove thing and look back on one of the Tribe’s glorious
seasons of yesteryears (a term all of you Lone Ranger fans are no doubt
familiar with). That being the case,
here is a brain teaser for you to mull over while you sit around that old hot
stove, compliments of tom Walsh, and ‘64.
The 1920 World Series between the
Cleveland Indians and the Boston Braves saw no less than five “firsts” in World
Series history, one “last”, and one “next to last”. How many of these can you name? Hint:
all five of the firsts involved the Cleveland Indians.
Answers next week or you can e-mail
me if the suspense gets to be too much.
Public-Private Since the
supporters of separating the state tournaments into private and public events are
so intent on doing so, in part to “level the playing field”, they had better
pay close attention to the following because this dominance of the various
state tournaments is really getting out of hand – something must
be done!!
For openers, what are they going to
do about schools like Brecksville-Broadview
Heights High
School and Upper
Arlington? The
last time we checked these were still public institutions. However, in the recently completed girls
state gymnastics competition, Brecksville-Broadview
Heights won the team tournament
for the 10th consecutive year.
In fact, there was only one private school (#9 Magnificat) in the top 12
finishers. Then in the individual
competition the girls from Brecksville-Broadview
Heights won
every event.. How is
separation going to “level the playing field” here?
As for Upper Arlington, they finished fourth in the
recently completed Girls Div. I swim and dive competition. “So what?” you might say, but the Golden
Bears had won the previous eight consecutive tournaments. Was this the end of the line for these girls or
just an aberration to their outstanding run of success? Better play it safe and
find a way to separate them from the rest before they really start to dominate.
(By the way, only two of the top 14 finishers in this swim tournament were from
private schools. These private schools
should welcome separation – more swim and gymnastics state titles for
them. And how ridiculous would that be –
exactly!!)
And then there is this season’s
state ice hockey tournament. Here is
this season’s Final Four: Shaker Heights, Rocky
River, Sylvania Northview, Powell Olentangy Liberty.
The last time I looked these are all public schools. And how did they get to the Final Four? All they did was defeat St. Ed’s, Holy Name, University School,
Toledo St.
John’s (and Rocky River
also knocked off the Wildcats, the state’s top ranked team) !! Yes, we better proceed with the separation
process so that the private schools can earn a championship trophy, too.
Readers
Comments
Referring to last week’s question
about whether or not baseball teams from the warm weather states are
necessarily better than those from colder weather states, H.O. wrote:
Baseball is played year round in Cal, Tex, Fla., La, etc.
Many players play baseball only and perfect their skills year by year.
Northern players can't compete because they don't have the same
opportunities for six months. College and pro teams are loaded with warm
weather players. When's the last time a Big Ten team won the College
World Series - answer: never, it's
always Texas, LSU, Florida, FSU, USC, etc. … What
more do you need to know? It's the weather stupid! (MMQB: You probably meant to say, “It’s the stupid
weather!”)
MMQB: While admittedly it
is not often, to say that Big Ten schools have never won the CWS is incorrect. Michigan: 1953 & 1962; Minnesota: 1956, 1960, 1964; Ohio State:
1966. Schools from northern states dominated the
CWS in the early 1960s. Further, Oregon State
won back to back CWS in 2006 and 2007.
H.K. had this to say about the
Wildcats losing in the semifinals of the jayvee hockey state tournament:
I believe the JV hockey team lost to Toledo St. Francis ….
St. Francis saw fit to bring down 4 players from the varsity for this
tournament, seniors, I believe. About that level playing field... I heard this from my sister,
who was at the game.
SIBN The St.
Ignatius Broadcast Network will have live coverage, video and/or audio, of many
St. Ignatius baseball games this spring.
Check the SIBN schedule on the St. Ignatius website for current
broadcast schedules and in formation.
We Do Research
Projects, Too. Many of you are
familiar with the fine sports histories that Sports Heritage has produced, but did you know that we also do
straight research projects as well? Most
recently we researched the complete history of both the boys and girls
basketball teams at Akron
Buchtel High
School, finding the results of every game these
teams have ever played as well as setting up a listing of team and individual
records.
We can do the same thing for your
favorite team or school. So, whether it
is a full length book history of a high school or college team or sports
program, or simply tracking down the record of what took place, Sports Heritage is the one to get it
done for you.
Do you have a famous athlete in the
family whose career you would like researched and recorded? Sports
Heritage also does personal histories.
Call us today and get the ball
rolling on whatever kind of a research project you need done.
Resumes Need help with your resume and/or cover letter? Just shoot me an e-mail and a copy of your
resume in Word format. If you have been
out of work or just want to freshen your resume you might want to take
advantage of this free service. Can also help with cover letters. And all at no charge.
Tim
Sports Heritage
Specialty Publications
4814 Broadview Rd.
Cleveland, Ohio 44109
216-741-6532
“For
when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes – not that
you won or lost – but how you played the Game”
Grantland Rice
