IT’S BEEN A GOOD RIDE

By Dom DiPasqua/Staff Writer

Saturday afternoon, November 1, 2014

WESTLAKE – How will Brecksville-Broadview Heights be remembered by the Southwestern Conference? I think the overriding opinion is that the Bees will be remembered as consistent and classy competitors.

Brecksville won Southwestern Conference football championships in 2006, 2008 and in 2013. The ‘o6 and ’13 squads claimed outright league titles. That is not bad for the ten-year stretch that the Bees were members of the circuit.

In the other seasons Brecksville competed well. During that decade-long span the Bees re-invented themselves from a team that loved to run the football, and they did it well under previous head coach Jamie Hitmar, to morphing into one of the most prolific passing teams in the area in the Jason Black era.

The SWC was a good home for Brecksville. The Bees membership came upon admittance when the Pioneer Conference disbanded in the summer of 2004. From the get-go the Bees competed well with the leagues then top football powers in Amherst Steele, Avon Lake and Olmsted Falls.

Last fall Brecksville ran the table with a 6-0 slate en route to a 10-2 overall record and second-round playoff appearance in Division II, Region 3. This fall the Bees gave SWC champion Berea-Midpark a tough go of it for three quarters before the Titans pulled away to clinch the crown. Beeville finished second in its SWC swan song.

Brecksville’s rivalry with Avon Lake was a good one. The Bees, who had played Olmsted Falls as a non-league opponent for years prior to joining the SWC, had some dandies with the Bulldogs. Games against old PC rivals Berea and Midpark were always looked forward to.

On behalf of the BBHHS football program, thank you Southwestern Conference. It was an enjoyable ride with a wonderful grouping of schools. May the expanded SWC continue to enjoy its success as a highly-competitive conference for many years to come.

On a personal note, I will miss attending games at SWC schools. The gracious hospitality that was extended over the years will be hard to match in the Bees new home in 2015, the Suburban League.

The Waiting Game

Brecksville (8-2, 5-1 SWC) has clinched a spot in this years D-2, Region 3 playoffs for the second straight year. It is the first time in school history that the Bees advanced to the post-season in back-to-back years.

BBHHS is awaiting the final OHSAA computer rankings to see whom it will face in a first-round road game this Friday night at 7:30. The top eight teams in the region advance to the dance. As we speak Maple Heights and Bedford, two long time southeast side rivals, are going at it. The outcome of that contest may or may not alter the regions standings.

As of now the region shapes up like this: 1- Mayfield, 2- Madison, 3- Bedford, 4- Glenville, 5- Willoughby South, 6- BBHHS, 7- Maple Heights and 8- Garfield Heights.

If the computer stopped ticking right now Brecksville’s first-round opponent would be Bedford. Stay tuned as things become official Sunday afternoon. Madison is a very likely opponent.

How big are the Ohio high school football playoffs? My brother Mike lives 65 miles northwest of Chicago. He lives for this stuff. As a Maple grad he is all over what is going on between the Mustangs and arch rival Bedford. The back and forth text messages have added to Verizon’s bottom line. In much less than 24 hours the wait and anticipation of who the Bees match-up with will be over.

A Demon-Like Drizzle

The Bees bagged a playoff spot with their 35-7 thumping of Westlake last night at soggy Lou Duchez Field. It was their final game in the SWC and they went out on a good note.

The game marked the conclusion of Mark Campo’s run as head coach of the Demons. Campo, a guidance counselor at the school, will remain in that position. His overall record in seven seasons at the helm on Hilliard Boulevard was 33-38 (.465). Campo’s 2012 team shared the SWC title with Avon Lake. That squad advanced to the Division II playoffs where it lost a close game at home to Mansfield Madison. Best wishes to Coach Campo.

It was Senior Night at Westlake last night and as it has in the Bees previous four visits to Lou Duchez, it rained. “If it’s week ten and we are at Westlake you can count on rain,” veteran BBHHS head coach Jason Black got accustomed to saying over the years.

It was Halloween and costume-clad students were haunting the premises. With the temperature a halfway-decent 45-50 degrees it wasn’t bad. The only slight nuisance was a fairly steady drizzle. The Demons natural grass field looked good during warm-ups, but by the time the contest was over it resembled a well-trodden pasture. An injured Bee lost the rubber tip off the bottom of one his his crutches in the thick mud. Coach Black found it. A Brecksville marching band member went down in a heap during the halftime show. Those are two youngsters that won’t forget last night. Isn’t that part of the charm of high school sports?

Behind The Scenes

As is a week-ten tradition Coach Black invited the fathers of his senior players to join their sons for his pregame speech. You could hear a pin drop in the cramped Bees locker room inside WHS.

Before Black took command in the center of the tight confines Brecksville’s team captains for the night, all 15 seniors, came in with the results of the coin toss. Westlake won the toss and elected to receive. “If they want it, they got it,” said Bees defensive coordinator John Shirilla, whose pregame energy level is legendary.

Tyler Tupa, the Bees all-conference junior wide receiver, slipped his shoulder pads over just a skimpy white sleeveless t-shirt. That’s all you wear underneath? Tupa was asked. “It’s a man’s game,” Tupa replied with a straight face.

Hulking two-way junior tackle Nick Sokolowski applied eye-black in KISS fashion. As focused as Soko was he maintained his sense of humor. “We only have until tomorrow night to go the the haunted house,” Sokolowski reminded this scribe.

Coach Black, the master of the pregame speech, delivered a short and sweet talk. Black is not one to waste time or words. He brought to light the teams opportunity to be the first Brecksville squad to make it to the playoffs in consecutive campaigns. And then he addressed the weather. “There is no such thing as bad weather. There are just soft people,” Black said.

For SWC basketball coaches, both boys and girls, who bemoan the fact that it is a long walk from the fabulous Bee Hive gym to the downstairs locker room they, other than Art Daniels, have likely not made the long, dark walk from the stadium to the visiting locker room at Westlake. It is a hike to say the least.

Soggy Sideline

Out on the field the Bees band blared the fight song as Brecksville stormed through the cheerleaders banner. Junior cheerleader Chloe Backman offered her customary pregame prediction. “I really think that Brecksville will win. I believe that the score will be 33-24,” Backman said. Chloe was close on one side of the ledger. The Bees tallied 35.

The field was soft and slippery. As an old Scottish soccer player told me years ago, “When the pitch is like that the lads just put longer nails in the boots and git after it, ya,” he said.

Longer nails would have been nice. But a good mud bath once a season is something most 16 and 17 year old lads look forward to.

Coach Hitmar, who now lives in North Carolina, was in town to see the Bees game as well as attend what is known as “The Sausage-Fest”. That event is the annual day/evening long party thrown the first Saturday of November by another former BBHHS head coach, Ed Herrick. Herrick is known as a grill-master when it comes to firing-up a wide variety of links.

There wasn’t much of a crowd at Duchez last last. It was rainy, it was Halloween and the home team was running out the string of a season for a coach that became lame-duck a little over 24 hours before kick off.

Still there was a game to be played. And the Bees were a tad slow getting on track. “There was a little bit at the beginning of the game that we needed to pick-up. We didn’t start out intense enough. We made a few mental mistakes with our penalties,” Black said. “We’ve got to fix that. We were able to fix those mistakes during the game. But we have to fix them from the get-go when we get to week 11.”

Strnad’s Sprint

Brecksville’s Luke Strnad, a sophomore quarterback, jolted the visiting fans from under their umbrella’s when he raced 89-yards to the Demons one late in the first quarter. On the next play Strnad, with the help of Jakob Nypaver’s extra point kick, gave the Bees a lead that they would systematically pad throughout the game.

Senior linebacker Joe Dimitrijevs pounced on a loose football. That was the first of a half-dozen turnovers that the Demons (3-7, 1-5 SWC) would commit. On Westlake’s next possession Ryan Lambert would intercept senior quarterback Dillon Schneider. “I saw that all the way, baby!,” Lambert said when he came off the field.

The score on Westlake’s new digital scoreboard remained 7-0 and it appeared as though the Demons were going to keep this one close and low-scoring. But their possession late in the first half only lasted 33 seconds, on two incomplete passes and a run for -4 yards. A punt gave the ball back to the Bees and that played right into offensive coordinator Tom Tupa’s crafty hands.

Strnad completed three passes to Tupa, (the WR and not the coordinator) before he found senior Garrett Patterson for 28 yards to keep the Demons back-peddling. The two-minute drill was going to be successful. Tupa’s 5-yard TD reception and Nypaver’s second of five point-afters in the slop gave the visitors a 14-0 lead at intermission.

Marching in The Mud 

BBHHS Principal Joe Mueller and Athletic Director Dan Kalinsky kept dry under umbrella’s as the schools band took the field. “The Bees freshmen team beat Westlake, 40-8, Thursday afternoon. They finished 8-2 under coach Jeff Black,” Kalinsky noted.

The Debonaire’s, The Pride of Westlake’s flag line, waited their turn. “This field is terrible,” one young lady said to me with a frown.

Kalinsky was on a roll. “This is our fifth visit to Westlake and this is the BEST weather we’ve had,” he said as a matter-of-fact.

Over along the fence the few dozen members of The Swarm that made the trip were in rare form. Sophomore basketball player Jared “Big Baby” Bazil was dressed in a Richard Simmons wig. “I have the mask too, but I didn’t think I should wear it in here,” Bazil said. “All Bazil wants to do is go to Chipotle on the way home and we stopped there on the way out here. Burritos were half-price if you were in costume,” hoop teammate Jimmy Henyey, a junior, said with a shake of his head.

“You should send the Westlake Athletic Department the bill to clean your boots,” Henyey added as BBHHS cheerleader Alex Stojkov peered into a bag of Tootsie Pops before begging off.

Adding To The Total

Patterson made a great return of the second half kick off up the far sideline. He culminated the series with a 25-yard TD catch to make the score 21-0 early in the third stanza.

Niall Lewison intercepted a Schneider pass to end one Westlake drive. And sophomore defensive end Victor Bierman did what he does best and blocked another punt. That gave Brecksville a short field and it made the Demons pay. Senior linebacker turned running back Joe Dimitrijevs steam-rolled up the middle for 15 yards and a touchdown to make the score 28-zip late in the third.

Dimitrijevs would pick off a pass later. And classmate and fellow linebacker Mason Mackovjak would recover yet another fumble that cost the hosts.

Jared Schott tip-toed 18 yards down the near sideline for a first down just before the third period siren went off. And on the first play of the fourth frame Schott, an outgoing senior WR, scored his first varsity touchdown on a 5-yard pass from Strnad.

That play concluded the Bees scoring and it was enough to have Hitmar and Black ask for their version of a victory cigar, a Tootsie Pop. A fresh bag was opened just to respect the occasion. “We got it to 35-0 and from there it was good,” said Black.

Westlake scored with 6:33 to play to avert the shutout. And the countdown was on for Brecksville’s second playoff celebration in as many seasons.

Meanwhile, Back at The Bee Hive

It was a quick bus ride home for the Bees. They usually are when you win by four touchdowns on the road. This hack was waiting for the team back at their clubhouse at Community Stadium. “It will get loud in here in a minute,” Tom Tupa said. “Stick around. We are going to do our countdown. You won’t want to miss that,” added John Shirilla.

And so, as tradition dictates, Brecksville players hooted and hollered and generally whipped themselves into a mosh-pit type frenzy when linebackers coach Mike Czack got them going. “Trainer” Tom Iannetta intuitively captured the moment with his smart phones video app. “it came out pretty good,” Iannetta said.

That’s what playoff-bound teams do. They party in their locker room like it’s 1984. But this is 30 years later and the Bees are headed to the post-season for the second straight year.

In the coaches office the television was tuned to the Cav’s game at Chicago. LeBron made it 100-98 early in overtime when he made a no-look layup. Coach Black and this beat writer adjourned outside, under the canopy between locker rooms, for our post game interview.

Black could not say enough about the 15 seniors on his team and what they have meant to this seasons success. “Everybody gave up on these guys as they came up through the program. People doubted them. But this group is pretty good. They won eight games this year. I’m proud of their resilience. This group started with 30 kids and they are down to 15. These are the 15 guys who are willing to fight and claw and do what they are supposed to do,” Black said.

Outdoors the rain had stopped. However there was nothing but sunshine inside the Bees locker room. “Last year when we went to the playoffs the whole town went nuts. We had so much support,” Ryan Lambert said. “We’ll have a really good week and work hard. We can’t wait to play whoever it is we do in week 11.”

 

BEE BUZZ:

Brecksville is 18-4 in its last 22 ballgames. The Bees averaged 30.6 points per start in the regular season and allowed 23 ppg.

This will be Brecksville’s ninth trip to the playoffs. The 1983 team won the Division II state championship with Ohio State-bound Tom Tupa at quarterback. Last year the Bees defeated Painesville Riverside at home before falling by one to Madison at Mentor. In 2010, while still a member of Division I, they lost at Solon in the first round. In 2008 Brecksville was topped by Cleveland Glenville at Bedford’s Bearcat Stadium. That was Coach Hitmar’s last game.

Jason Black’s playoff record is 1-2.

Westlake lost its last four games of the season and six of its final seven. Mark Campo announced his resignation to his team early Thursday evening. The search will begin for the Demons next coach. It appears to be an attractive position. The high school, which is a little over a year old, is fantastic. The athletic facilities are good. There is word that Lou Duchez Field will be turfed at some point. That would be a welcome addition.

Condolences to Avon Lake head coach Dave Dlugosz and his family on the recent passing of his mother.

 

LAST NIGHTS GAMES:

Southwestern Conference

BBHHS – 35, Westlake – 7

The Bees earn their second consecutive playoff trip with a big road win in their last SWC game.

North Olmsted – 27, Olmsted Falls – 7

Christian Ammons tossed four scoring passes to three different receivers and the Eagles finished in third place in the loop.

Avon Lake – 31, Amherst Steele – 7

The Shoremen hear the victory bell toll for the first time all season at Memorial Stadium by claiming their first league win to finish an uncharacteristic 2-8.

 

Cross-Over Game

Midview – 38, Berea-Midpark – 28

The Middies (West Shore Conference) get past the Titans in a battle of neighboring conference champions on Senior Night at Finnie Stadium. B-M will drop from second place in Division I, Region 1, but may still have a grip on a first-round home playoff game.

 

OTHER GAMES OF NOTE:

Holy Name – 48, Trinity – 8

The Green Wave finishes strong with four wins in a row, including last nights North Coast League clubbing of the rival Trojans at Bedford’s Bearcat Stadium.

Stow-Munroe Falls – 35, North Royalton – 7

A tough season comes to a close for the Bears. NORO now departs the Northeast Ohio Conference, a league it had played a large roll in creating, to join the Bees as members of the Suburban League in 2015.

Hudson – 51, Twinsburg – 13

Hudson, the state’s top-ranked Division I team, sails into the post-season on the heels of an easy tune-up victory over the one-win Tigers.

North Ridgeville – 45, Lakewood – 26

Lakewood goes win less in the West Shore Conference after a 2-1 start to the season.

 

FINAL 2014 SOUTHWESTERN CONFERENCE STANDINGS:

Berea-Midpark ….. 6-0 ….. 8-2.

BBHHS ….. 5-1 ….. 8-2.

North Olmsted ….. 4-2 ….. 7-3.

Olmsted Falls ….. 3-3 ….. 4-6.

Westlake ….. 1-5 ….. 3-7.

Avon Lake ….. 1-5 ….. 2-8.

Amherst Steele ….. 1-5 ….. 2-8.

 

Upcoming stories: Sunday morning (a look at the stats from the Brecksville-Westlake game). Sunday night (The Playoff Picture in full focus). Monday night (A preview of Friday nights post-season opener).

 

See You At The Bee Hive!

To contact: Ddipa67834@aol.com.

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