Avon receiver Grant Barr was a hard man for Glenville to stop Friday with 10 catches for a 159 yards. (Press Pros feature photos by Thomas Henderson)
Back home after a long trip south, adverse conditions and a loss, defending Division II state champion Avon starts fast and leans on its defense to hand Glenville its first defeat.
By Dan Gilles for Press Pros
Avon, OH – Last weekend, Avon traveled to Florida, but it wasn’t for a vacation.
In fact, it was anything but that. The Eagles battled a ton of adversity with travel, lodging, and weather conditions in a 25-22 loss to Spruce Creek. It was their first regular season loss since Sept. 2, 2022 – a 27-21 loss to Glenville at Mark Wahlberg Chevrolet Field at Avon Stadium.
Friday night, Avon faced a rolling Tarblooders team that had defeated defending Division I state champ Olentangy Liberty and perennial state powerhouse Massillon Washington in their first two games. Something had to give.
Turns out that losing trip to Florida did something to the Eagles – the defending Division II state champions – this week. They scored two quick touchdowns en route to a 28-16 nonconference victory over Glenville.
Glenville was first in Division IV Region 13, while Avon was 10th in Division II Region 6, according to JoeEitel.com. Those rankings are sure to change this week.
Avon ‘s Dylan Lukar scored the Eagles’ first touchdown on a seven-yard pass from Blake Elder.
“We took these kids 1,000 miles from home and played a game under adverse circumstances and conditions,” Avon coach Mike Elder said. “We don’t make excuses, but what I noticed about our team after last week was there’s extreme ownership within this team. The coaches and players, when things don’t go well, they look at themselves and they look in the mirror, and that’s special.
“When you’ve got a group like that, you know you’ve got a chance because we let a game get away from us. Spruce Creek’s a good team – they’re probably gonna win nine or 10 games this year. It’s a big school down there, we knew what we were going up against. But after that game, there was no finger pointing.”
Elder admitted the trip may not have been the best idea.
“We’ve had three great weeks of weather up here in Ohio, and I decide to take my guys 1,000 miles away to play the heat and humidity – I should have my head examined,” he said. “Plus, it rained and we had a weather delay, we had an hour bus trip to and from the game, I could give you a million things. We kind of set our team up for failure, but doggone it, we took it down to the wire despite all of that and had a chance to win.
“We treat these first three games like exhibition games, and I mean that. If we lose this game, it doesn’t affect our goal to win a (Southwestern) Conference championship. We want to play really good competition these first 3 weeks to not only prepare for our conference games, but also what we will see in the playoffs. We’re trying to build this thing, and we want to know what we are good at and what we have to get better at. And how do you know unless you play really good teams? We played three really good opponents and we’re 2-1 heading in the right direction.”
Elder said he noticed a distinct change from his team as it arrived home and began to prepare for Glenville.
Grant Barr and Avon kept pointing themselves in the right direction in a bounce-back victory over Glenville.
“We had a great week of practice,” he said. “Our seniors really stepped up – they had a players’ only meeting, and I couldn’t be more proud of that leadership group. We turn this team over every year to the seniors, and they learn from the seniors in front of them, and so on and so on. You just don’t know what you have until this week when you go through rough times.
“We were finally able to see that this group is going to lead and going to lead well.”
One of those seniors was receiver Grant Barr. Barr quickly became a favorite and reliable target for senior quarterback Blake Elder Friday night, finishing with 10 receptions for 159 yards and added a 2-point conversion. Barr had 118 yards on six catches in the first quarter alone.
“We don’t like losing,” Barr said. “As a senior class, we’ve only lost twice in our careers. I hope we don’t lose again. It started with practice, hustling more, lifting more, tackling better, catching everything thrown our way. We’ve got a tough SWC schedule coming up, but I think we’ll be all right. I think this was a good starting point to get back to Avon Football.
“We’ve got a bunch of great coaches who know what to do. They know how to get the right personnel on the field and call the right plays, and we ran the plays that were beneficial for us tonight. Things got in good positions for me – we ran great plays for me. We practiced these plays, and they paid off tonight.”
Elder gave credit to his quarterback-receiver combo.
“We didn’t plan on getting away from the run game – we came in trying to be balanced,” he said. “They are hard to run the ball against – nobody has been able to really run the ball well against Glenville. But when you mix it up and you throw a lot of motion like we did, that helped us. We ran the ball effectively tonight, and I thought Blake and Grant had a great connection as well.”
Glenville wide receiver Pauly Sadler finds some running room against Avon’s defense that mostly kept the Tarblooders in check.
Avon wasted no time drawing first blood. Coming off the opening kickoff, the Eagles drove 65 yards in six plays. Elder went 3-for-3 on the drive for 55 yards, with the key plays being a 37-yard catch and run by Barr, followed by an 11-yard catch by Barr to make it first-and-goal on the 10. Elder found senior tight end Dylan Lukar wide open for a 6-yard touchdown pass and a 7-0 lead with 9:31 left in the first.
Glenville answered with an impressive drive, marching 78 yards in 12 plays. The Tarblooders converted two third downs on the drive – a 26-yard pass from Arvell Nelson to tailback Romell Phillips on third-and-11, and a facemask penalty after an apparent Avon stop on third-and-1 from the 6. After the latter, Phillps scored on a 3-yard sweep with 3:10 left in the first.
Glenville caught a break on the extra point with an offsides penalty. But the 2-point conversion attempt by Phillips was stopped short, keeping the Eagles ahead, 7-6.
The Eagles responded with another touchdown drive in what was shaping up to be a wild first quarter. A trick play where Elder tossed a lateral to Chase Youngblood, who then found Barr wide open for a 27-yard gain, started this drive off in style. Barr added another 33-yard catch that put the ball on the Glenville 6, and Cam Wendell found the end zone from a yard out to make it 13-6, Eagles, with 57 seconds left in the first.
“If you watch their film like we did, we saw them win at Massillon despite 20 penalties and then went down to Columbus and beat the defending state champs,” Elder said. “We knew this defense was ultra talented. I think scoring the first two times out of the gates was really great for our confidence.”
Neither team could get much going in the second quarter. Caden Clapham had a nice interception on the Avon 15 that thwarted a potential Glenville scoring drive with 5:55 left in the first half.
Avon started the second half just like the first half – scoring on its first possession. Thanks to an errant punt snap and a 7-yard loss by the Glenville punter, the Eagles got the ball on the Tarblooder 25. Four plays later, Wendell did the honors from 5 yards out, putting Avon ahead, 20-6.
Glenville finally got something going offensively to start the fourth quarter. With a 37-yard completion to Joseph Saffold to start the drive, it drove 68 yards in eight plays. A 5-yard touchdown run by Da’Von McDougle and subsequent 2-pointer cut the deficit to 20-14.
Momentum seemed to be tilting toward the Tarblooders when they were able to hold Avon to a 3-and-out on the ensuing possession. The Eagles quickly set up to punt, and Glenville was penalized for an illegal substitution penalty. It was fourth-and-5, so those five yards – Glenville was penalized 15 times for 150 yards Friday night – kept the ball in Avon’s hands.
Seven plays later, Elder found Fin Jerdonek from 21 yards out for the game-clinching touchdown with 7:19 remaining. Barr’s 2-point reception made it a 28-14 game, and all Glenville could muster after that was an intentional safety taken by Avon’s punter in the final moments.
“Our defense, wow,” Elder said. “They have some big, physical backs and we just kept flying to the ball. We thought we needed 28 to win, and it ended up being that. We might have gotten away with 21 tonight the way our defense looked out there.
“Defense wins championships, guys. Last year we won a state championship because we were lucky and good, we stayed healthy. And this year, we’re good again. This defense is a good defense and Coach (Jared) Cecchetti and his staff do a great job. If people can’t score points on you, it takes a lot of pressure off the offense. Tonight, to hold a good team to 16, that was big.”
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