New Bremen QB Gavin Dicke proved to be a playmaker in New Bremen last fall. Dicke and the Cardinals should be a bigger threat as they enter the 2025 season. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Opening night for high school football is three weeks away and the calendar is going to be busy. Let me explain why there is so much more to see this year…than just Friday nights.
Stunned…to acknowledge that it’s just three weeks until the start of the fall high school sports season.
Significant changes? Not that many, except that the OHSAA has announced that it’s cutting the regional tournament field back to 12 teams from 16. I don’t know if they had a premonition…or a case of guilt…or advice from their accountant concerning poor attendance for non-relevant games.
And Press Pros has made some necessary adjustments, as well, welcoming Marcus Hartman, late of the Dayton Daily News, to our weekly beat…meaning there will be at least one extra Friday night game covered in either the MAC or the MVL…along with additional coverage for the growing boom of state-ranked, competitive volleyball.
Publisher Sonny Fulks writes OHSAA sports and Ohio State baseball for Press Pros Magazine.com.
And another way I know that opening night(s) are upon us is the swell in August readership. We welcome everyone back, glad for the new first-timers, and some interesting opinions for the next edition of the ‘Reader Speaks’ page. So here’s five points I’ll make pertinent to some of those early questions and responses.
Point one….A lot of people are asking about local football, highlighted by Marion Local’s winning streak, four state titles in a row, and whether they’re capable of matching what Cleveland St. Ignatius did from 1991-’95, the only Ohio team to win five consecutive football titles. You never say never, and Marion Local has taken some teams in the past that seemed short in a few positions and somehow worked their way into the playoff and the state finals.
You have to be lucky, of course, and you have to be healthy. From studying last year’s roster I hardly think they have the depth they’ve had in recent years, and I do like their post-season chances better than another 16-0 season. They probably get a cookie with their opening game against South Adams (Indiana), a team that finished 8-6 in 2024, and 2-4 in an average small-school conference. They then travel to Convoy Crestview for Week 2, and while the Knights are always competitive, they’re coming off a 5-6 season and a non-competitive loss to Ottawa Hills in the playoffs.
The first significant challenge will come against St. Henry in week 3, a team that Tim Goodwin openly professes respect for, and a team that will probably challenge Marion, physically. Bottom line, I think Marion will eventually play like the Marion you’ve grown to know (they’re going to run the ball a lot), but it might take a few weeks before the execution of things becomes predictable.
How good is St. Henry (in red, above)? No one can tell for now, but their ability to hit should not be questioned (above)
Point two…And what about St. Henry, or the rest of the MAC, for that matter? Since our column on second-year coach Josh Werling and the Redskins last week people have taken notice.
Are they that good? When did they get that good? And are they the favorite to upend Marion for the MAC title?
I don’t know how good they are, and neither does Josh Werling. They’re only two days into wearing pads and there are questions, like with other teams. But they have an experienced offensive line that can move people. There’s a pair of senior backs in Charlie Werling and Jack Huelsman, capable of 1,000 yard years, each. One of their two best athletes is wide receiver Carter Laguire, who’s returning after an ACL repair last year.
But this team won five in a row to finish the season, finished 7-5 after a 2-4 start, and had an impressive playoff win over New Bremen. My biggest concern about the Redskins would be their depth. They dress about 60, and a lot of them don’t shave yet. They’re young.
But trust me, they believe at St. Henry that those five wins in a row were no fluke…believe in Charlie Werling and Jack Huelsman…and the ability to punish people with the running game.
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I don’t think it was a fluke, either.
Point 3…Those who have written to ask about other challenging teams in the MAC, there’s no question that New Bremen will benefit from then sophomore Gavin Dicke playing as big as he did at times in 2024. And Chris Schmidt has certainly developed some culture for the sport with two state titles in five years. Kids grow up in Bremen now wanting to play football.
And Versailles had a nice developmental year in 2024, despite injuries and losing three of their last four. If they’re healthy, Hole Field will still be a tough place to play.
Junior Braxton Taylor will assume a lot of the running load for yet another retooling in Coldwater.
And while Coldwater, the league’s other state champion, lost Baylen Blockberger, Cody Depweg, and Miles Pottkotter, somehow, and somewhere, Chip Otten will find a quarterback that has a little Austin Bruns, Jack Hemmelgarn, and Brody Hoying mix, even if all he has to do is turn and hand the ball to junior running back Braxton Taylor. Taylor has added size and strength, and he’s the quickest of all the Coldwater running backs you’ve seen over the past decade. He made a habit of outrunning fly balls as their centerfielder last spring, and he’ll show that speed in pads this fall.
So yes, there will be nights come October when multiple MAC games will dictate multiple coverage on Press Pros.
Point four…If you hunger for a bigger level of football, I would urge you to pay attention to Matt Burgbacher’s Tipp Red Devils, coming off an 11-1 season in Division III (Miami Valley League), and poised behind all-state candidate quarterback Larkin Thomas to go tearing through the Miami Valley League (North, or Miami Division) this fall.
Here’s the disadvantage of playing within a hundred miles of Marion Local. It will take at least a month before anyone even notices that Tipp’s 5-0.
Thomas, as we profiled earlier in July, is the real deal among area quarterbacks, having thrown for 2,700 yards and 38 touchdowns…and he’s only a junior. But they can run it, too, and senior Will Strong returns to head a talented group of pass catchers, because the offense at Tipp is no longer predicated on the Jet Sweep (Wing T). It’s wide open all the time, just the way Thomas likes it…and just the way Burgbacher intends to use his talented slinger.
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Outside of Butler, the rest of the MVL (Piqua, Troy, Sidney, Greenville, Fairborn, and Xenia) will have to prove themselves. The cumulative record of those six was just 15-21 last year.
Point five…If you’ve grown accustomed to great volleyball in the area, nothing’s changed for 2025.
Coldwater and Fort Loramie both won state titles last fall, but this year St. Henry, for now, is perhaps the most athletic team in the MAC…a team that’s been knocking on the door now for years, only to come up short to Coldwater and New Bremen.
Libero Rya Buschur is graduated and gone at St. Henry, but the group she left behind will play with the same kind of hustle and passion.
Tricia Rosenbeck and the Redskins have experience, familiarity, and as much motive as you could possibly want to finally kick that door in and get back to the Final Four in Division VI. Believe it or not, they’ve won 7 state titles previously…and not a bad bet for number 8 in 2025.
New Bremen is young, smaller, but talented. And Diana Kramer will find a way to make them competitive against all comers.
Coldwater lost size and experience, but the culture there is so good under Nikki Etzler they’ll be fine, if not really good.
The outlier will be an impressive group at Versailles with coach Liz McNeilan. But the Tigers played so well at times last year they’re hardly expected to be that much of an outlier. People expect them to be good.
And of course Marion Local, in their second year under Katherine Dirksen, The Flyers have four of MAC’s all-time total of 20 OHSAA state titles in volleyball.
How good was Div. V Coldwater last year? Senior Spencer Etzler is now playing for Stanford University. That good!
Fort Loramie lost too much from their Division VII title team to reset in just nine months, and long-time coach John Rodgers called it a career after his second title with the Redskins. Kelly Hoying has taken the reins and will have come rebuild work to do.
Russia was young last year, but despite the growing pains Aaron Watkins is always optimistic for a run at the district title.
The point in all of this is that volleyball really is the fasting growing high school spectator sport, nationally, and readership rivals that of football. Proof that there’s more to see in area sports than ever before.
How good will the rest of the area be…volleyball and football? With seven divisions I truthfully can’t say because until someone shows that they’re really different, you tend to focus your attention to what you do know…and then wait to learn differently.
Marion’s streak will end at some point, and there’s always a team that proves to be better than you expected. I just gave you a few hints, for that matter, and the fun is to see how many of those hunches pay off.
Or even the ones you’d never have guessed.
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