Versailles’ Michael Osborne made this circus catch in the 2021 Div. V title game with Kirtland. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Across the miles, across the divisions, a powerhouse from Northeast Ohio knows that should it reach Canton on the final weekend of the high school football season, there will be a Midwest Athletic Conference foe waiting.
Columbus, OH — There is an adage in football which threatens dire consequences for all who peek ahead on the schedule and stray from taking opponents one game at a time.
Apparently, though, the jinx doesn’t apply when presuming success for rivals expected to appear in Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium with a state championship on the line.
When Coldwater and Kirtland kick off Saturday at 10:30 a.m. to chase the Division VI title, both will be playing someone about whom they were more sure of being there than themselves.
Veteran columnist Bruce Hooley writes OHSAA sports at large for Press Pros Magazine.com.
“If we could get there, we absolutely expected to be playing Kirtland,” Coldwater coach Chip Otten said. “We’ve never faced them, and never would face them with the way the regions are set up, before we’d play them for the championship.
“But as soon as they set the Divisions in the summer, we definitely take a peek, like, ‘Yep, they’re out there. They’re in the same division as us.’ “
The expectation is no different in Lake County, east of Cleveland, about 10 miles from Lake Erie, where Kirtland is tucked south of Willoughby and Mentor.
““I could have told you August 1, actually May 1, when they came out with the Divisions,” Kirtland coach Tiger LaVerde said. “I told people then that if we handled our business, we’d be playing Coldwater. I said that five months ago.”
LaVerde’s anticipation was founded on much more than his team’s back-to-back battles with Coldwater for the 2011 and 2012 Division 5 titles, which the teams split.
Kirtland coach Tiger LaVerde (above, left) with Versailles coach Ryan Jones.
This will be the first meeting of the schools since that initial matchup 14 seasons ago, when Kirtland won its first state championship of the seven it now holds.
Three more of those have been won by the Hornets upon vanquishing MAC opponents (Marion Local in 2015 and 2018, Versailles in 2023).
But four different MAC schools have defeated Kirtland five times in state title games, starting with Coldwater’s 10-9 victory in 2012. No other school from any other league in Ohio has defeated Kirtland in a state championship game except for MAC members Coldwater (2012), Minster (2014)l Marion Local (2017, 2022) and Versailles (2023).
This is the 13th time in 14 years LaVerde has coached his team to within one win of a state title, where Coldwater looms as the fourth straight MAC opponent (and third different school…Versailles in 2021 and 2023….Marion Local in 2022) the Hornets will confront on the final weekend of the season.
“First, you have to take care of your business, and our kids have done a nice job taking games one at a time and obviously so has Coach Otten and his guys,” LaVerde said. “But we kind of figured this is how it would work out.
“When Marion Local is in our division, we’ve played them four times in the final. Last year, I knew Versailles had a nice team coming back. I figured we’d end up playing them and we did. It’s kind of funny. It almost always ends up being who we thought it would be back in August.”
The Kirtland-Coldwater kickoff Saturday morning will be the 10th time the Hornets have faced a MAC team for a state championship. The MAC is 5-4 in those games.
“That’s a testament to how consistent Kirtland has been to be able to play the MAC that many times,” Versailles coach Ryan Jones said.
Jones and the Tigers broke Kirtland’s 55-game winning streak and stopped the Hornets’ three-year title run with a 20-16 victory to claim the Division V title in 2021, but lost in their rematch for the 2023 title, 32-15.
“Defensively, they changed more from the first time we played them to the second time we played them,” Jones said. “They ran more coverages than in 2021. They had four guys in the secondary who could match up and cover you. When you can do that and hold up in those situations, that allows you to blitz and get pressure on the quarterback.”
That will be a concern for Coldwater, which hopes to give quarterback Baylen Blockberger a secure pocket so he can keep Kirtland off balance with his rollouts and downfield throws.
“Every now and then, they’ll pull it and hit a big one on you deep. We have to be ready for that or they will make us pay.” – Coldwater coach, Chip Otten
The Cavaliers have three running backs in Cody Depweg, Miles Pottkotter and Braxton Taylor who offer a robust running threat.
“Just like Versailles last year, they’re very balanced,” LaVerde said. “They’re going to throw it a little bit. They’re going to run it a little bit. They’re not one-dimensional.”
Otten said he has looked at three game tapes of Kirtland and seen only five passes, including zero in its regional romp over Northmor, when the Hornets rushed the ball on all 60 plays.
“Don’t let that fool you,” Otten said. “Every now and then, they’ll pull it and hit a big one on you deep. We have to be ready for that or they will make us pay.”
Junior Jake LaVerde, the head coach’s son, is Kirtland’s quarterback. He broke his left arm in Week Six and returned in the regional finals.
He and three running backs do plenty of damage behind a physical offensive line in a scheme that is much more varied than Kirtland’s run-pass ratio would suggest.
“My dad taught me a long time ago you have to be diverse offensively, but there are different ways to do that,” Marion Local coach Tim Goodwin said. “They find ways to do that. Sometimes, they’re subtle ways. Other times, there are obvious ways of being diverse in the run game.
“I haven’t seen them this year and what they’re doing. In the past, they would give you all kinds of false keys with running backs and linemen just to muddy what you’re used to seeing.”
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Jones endorsed every word of that.
“Coach Goodwin is 100% right,” Jones said. “Is it hard to stop them even though you know it’s most likely a run? Yes. Sure, somebody is going to run it, but who? There’s lots of misdirection. They fake to this guy and fake to that guy.
“The plays look similar to the defense and they’re blocked similarly, but there are variations. It’s not that they run an offense no one has ever run before. It’s that they run it with a high level of execution and they have really good players doing it.
“It’s like saying, ‘Army isn’t very diverse; all they want to do is run the option.’ Well, the option is four plays in one sometimes. That can be pretty diverse. In fact, it’s so diverse it’s a hard offense to run.”
“When you play Kirtland you know it’s going to be physical. For me that’s a lot of fun.” – Marion coach Tim Goodwin (above, right, with his father, Bill)
Goodwin hasn’t concerned himself with Kirtland this season because he’s had the luxury of knowing the Hornets weren’t in his future.
Although, when Marion Local won its 13th of a record 14 state titles with a 14-6 nail-biter over Kirtland in 2022, Goodwin was notably reflective afterward about his Flyers being extended to a rare degree before gaining the triumph.
“We were very physical that year and I don’t think we got challenged the whole year on the line of scrimmage, but we sure did that game,” Goodwin said. “For me, that’s a lot of fun.
“That’s the last time we were in the same division, and it just gave that whole year a different flavor. We knew if we got to where we wanted to go, we were going to have Kirtland waiting for us and we were going to have to play one heck of a game to bring home the trophy we wanted to bring home.”
Kirtland’s 22-20 victory over Marion Local in 2015 Division VI title game stopped the Flyers’ run of championships at four, a streak they will be seeking to match Friday at 10:30 a.m. against Jeromesville Hillsdale for the Division VII crown.
“It’s always special to make it to the last game of the year,” LaVerde said. “The thing I love about playing teams from the MAC is the way their fans support their teams and how knowledgeable they are.
“We’ve had some great games against the MAC and I’m sure we’ll have another one on Saturday with Coldwater. Those MAC fans have treated us great over the years, so it’s always fun to play against whoever we get matched up with from there and see how it turns out.”
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