Orrville Red Rider Sports Blog

The End of an Era...and Beginning of a New One

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 23:04:00 +0000

Many of you saw the email from Orrville High School AD Kent Smith yesterday, but in case you didn't or haven’t discovered it yet, here’s the big news:

There is now an OFFICIAL website for the Orrville High School Athletic Department and Red Rider Sports.

The website address is www.GoRedRiders.org and I’m so proud to have been a small part in the creation & implementation of the site. This will eventually be a “one-stop shop” for Red Riders news, schedules, photos, athletic forms, articles and information. The site will also be home to the Orrville Booster Club as well as the Orrville High School Sports Hall of Fame and their various functions.

Give the site a visit and I think you’ll be very pleased. The site design is clean and professional and allows you to connect in many different ways. You can subscribe via email, Facebook and/or Twitter if you prefer to communicate in those methods. Website updates will be send to Twitter & Facebook instantly while those who subscribe via email will receive an email each morning with the previous day’s articles. Updates from the athletic director will eventually be posted straight to the website instead of via an email list.

You will notice there are ads on the new site, I know that can be a “turn off” to some, but the ads help offset the very minimal startup cost of the site. There are no annual or monthly fees to operate the site, just a 1-time startup fee. The ads also are an opportunity for the local business community to support Red Rider Athletics by advertising on the site. The athletic department will receive a portion of the ad revenue generated on the site and every little bit helps. The company behind the framework of the site is called Varsity News Network and they have done sites similar to the new Orrville site for lots of schools around Ohio, including local schools like Green & Medina. All content on the site will be created by myself, AD Kent Smith or his secretary Deb Goudy and perhaps the occasional contributor (parent, yearbook staff, photographer etc.).

Please bear with us as we become more familiar with the site. Our goal is to have it fully functional for the fall sports season but I think it’s off to a great start. We’re really excited about the potential.

This was done to bring everything under one umbrella. My site (RedRiderSportsBlog.com) and my presence on Facebook & Twitter will be coming to an end over the summer in favor of the new school-supported pages and I’m thrilled that this new site will be there to pick up the torch and run with it.

Please take time to check out the new site and subscribe to email updates and make sure to follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook if that's your thing.

On a personal level, I wanted to thank those have always supported what I've done with my own website. What started as a simple idea in 2008 has brought hundreds of Red Rider fans together literally from all over the country and in some cases, overseas.

One of my most treasured memories in my time doing this site was when the boys basketball team was down at state a few years ago and I received a message from an Orrville alum serving in Iraq. As he was doing his part to keep himself and our country safe, he wanted to know how the Riders were doing. It was such an honor to be the one keeping him and many other OHS alums "in the know" and I hope to help continue that service.

To put it simply, I'm extremely proud of what I've managed to do with this site. Somehow I was able to crank out 500 posts (the post you're reading right now is #501) over 6+ years....all the while enjoying some great experiences and some heartbreaking moments...but always Red Rider Pride every step of the way. It was a lot of late nights, but I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. I truly felt a sense of responsibility to put my best work on this site for you all to read & enjoy.

This site won't go away overnight, but I will no longer be updating it and will be removing content and moving it over to the new site as time allows.

I’d humbly ask that you support the new website with the same enthusiasm that you've given my site for the last 6 years.

Thanks & Go Riders!!

-Tim

New Website Address: www.GoRedRiders.org or click the “Athletics” tab at the top of the Orrville High School webpage (http://www.orrville.k12.oh.us/hs)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Orrville-Red-Riders-Athletics/686817714694573

Twitter: https://twitter.com/OREDRIDERS

Hannah Plybon, Orrville Alums & March Madness

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Fri, 21 Mar 2014 03:24:00 +0000

Akron's Hannah Plybon (L) and Ball State's Brandy Woody fight for a loose ball in the first half March 15, 2014 during the championship game of the 2014 Mid-American Conference Women's Basketball Tournament at Quicken Loans Arena. (John Kuntz / The Plain Dealer)

If you're a supporter of Red Rider athletics, you were no doubt smiling this past weekend at the news of 2013 OHS alum Hannah Plybon and the Akron Zips women's basketball team winning the Mid-American Conference tournament.

The win over Ball State at the Q Arena in Cleveland was not only the program's first MAC title since it's inception, but the win also clinched the first ever berth in the NCAA Women's Tournament for the Zips.
Hannah had 9 points (on three 3-pointers) in the win and continues to be a steady contributor.

The Zips received the 13th seed in the "Notre Dame" bracket and will face 4th seeded Purdue this Saturday on the campus of Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN.

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Hannah & the Zips qualifying for "March Madness" got me thinking about how many other Red Rider alums have taken part in the pinnacle of college basketball. Several names came to mind right away, but I needed reminded of others, and some I had completely forgot. Thanks to several readers, my memory was jolted and I was able to research the rest.

Below is, what I believe, the complete list of Orrville alums that have either played or coached in the men's or women's Division 1 NCAA basketball tournament.

1. Bobby Knight (Class of 1958). This was the obvious one. Before he was "The General" as a coach, he helped lead Ohio State to the 1960 NCAA title as a player. He would then lead the great Indiana teams of the 70's and 80's to 3 National Titles as a head coach....becoming one of very few coaches to win a title as a player and a coach (Dean Smith, Joe B. Hall, Lisa Mulkey-Robertson are the others). Coach Knight was a charter member of the Orrville HS Sports Hall of Fame.

2. Bob Weltlich (Class of 1962). Bob participated in several "March Madness" tourneys as a head coach at Mississippi, Florida International and South Alabama. He was also an assistant to Bob Knight on the 1976 Indiana Hoosier Undefeated National Championship team. Coach Weltlich was a 2013 inductee in the Orrville HS Sports Hall of Fame.

3. Ron Snyder (Class of 1966). I'd have never thought of this one if not for Mr. Dave Yonto. He said while he was a senior attending Notre Dame, the Irish faced Miami of Ohio and OHS grad Ron Snyder played for them. The Redskins (now the Redhawks) defeated the Irish 63-60 but lost their next game to eventual National Runner Up Purdue and the 3rd place contest to Kentucky. Ron was a 1997 inductee in the Orrville HS Sports Hall of Fame.

4. Rhonda Winters (Class of 1984). The #2 career scorer in Orrville girls history, Rhonda was part of the 1985 Ohio State team that made the NCAA tournament. The Buckeyes were 28-3 on the season and a perfect 18-0 in the Big Ten. They defeated Holy Cross in the first round and Penn State in the 2nd round before being bounced from the tournament by Old Dominion.

5. Stacie (Howard) Carpenter (Class of 1990). Aside from Bobby Knight's run to the 1960 National Title with Ohio State, Stacie (Howard) Carpenter's 1993 March Madness run was one of the most incredible. She was a starter as a junior on that team (along with then freshman standout Katie Smith) and averaged 8 points a game on the season. They entered the tournament with a record of 24-3 and shared the Big Ten title with Iowa. The Buckeyes captured the East region with consecutive wins over Rutgers, Western Kentucky and Virginia to punch their ticket to the Final Four in Atlanta. They defeated Iowa in the National Semifinal but dropped an 84-82 heartbreaker to Texas Tech in the championship game. WNBA great Sheryl Swoopes was on that Texas Tech team and scored 47 points that night against the Buckeyes. If you're reading this Stacie...sorry for opening up any old wounds. :-) Stacie was a 1999 inductee into the Orrville HS Sports Hall of Fame.

6. Keri (Simmons) Hamsher (Class of 1994). As a member of the Marshall women's basketball team, Keri led the Herd to the 1997 NCAA Tournament (their first tournament appearance ever) as an automatic qualifier by winning the Southern Conference Tournament championship. She was named MVP of the conference tournament. Their first round opponent in the NCAA tournament was Colorado and they lost 69-49. Keri was a 2001 inductee into the Orrville HS Sports Hall of Fame.

7. Dawn (Woodruff) Hamilton (Class of 1998). Dawn participated in the 1999 tournament as a member of the Liberty Flames. They won the Big South Conference Tournament and earned an automatic bid to the tourney, but lost their first round game versus Georgia.

8. Hannah Plybon (Class of 2013). To be determined.....

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What a great legacy all of those listed above and many, many others have made for themselves after leaving the halls of OHS. Proud to call them all Red Riders.

I really, really hope that I recognized everyone. If I missed anyone that is an Orrville alum and played or coached in either the men's or women's NCAA Division 1 basketball tournament, please let me know.

Good luck Hannah this weekend against Purdue....Orrville is so proud of what you and your teammates have accomplished this year....and hope it continues.

Celebrating 6 Years...and a change.

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 02:42:00 +0000

Another March 10th has past. That's the anniversary date of this site, now 6 years old. I'm still supremely proud of the site that has brought Red Rider news to so many, especially my out-of-town readers....but some things about this site are just evolving and I wanted to share that with you.

The date is less and less of a milestone each year, just the day every year that I have to decide if I want to keep doing this or not....and pay the fee to keep the site registered.

The site is a shell of it's former self. It peaked in 2009, with 139 posts that year, that's more than 10 per month....to just 19 posts total in 2013 (not even 2 per month)....and only 1 post in the first 2+ months this year. The downward trend is obvious. Things in life have a season, and while I'd rather not do the site at all than not be able to put my best effort into it....I still think the site has a purpose.

Nothing will take precedence over my family. I've been married to my wonderful wife for nearly 14 years now and we have 3 beautiful & healthy children. That's where I'm at in life right now...as many of you are, have been or will be someday.

Back to the purpose of the site...I think its changed from the the day to day, season to season minutiae that it was in the past. I still find it serves as a reference point for historical information and I want to keep that information as current as possible, and add information as I'm able.

So, the site won't be going anywhere for now, but gone are the days and days of research that go in to one blog post. I just don't have the time anymore.

What I will do in place of frequent updates is try to bring information that is posted elsewhere to this site. You'll notice at the bottom of the home page and every page on this site starting today and going forward is a running timeline of the information I post to my Facebook page. And on the right side of the home page and every page near the top is my twitter timeline.

I still post to those services quite regularly and have found both to be quicker and easier to share information than this blog. Both services are very mobile friendly, while blogging is not. My goal is the same as its always been...to inform and discuss pertinent information as it pertains to Red Rider Athletics and our grads as they compete at the next level.

So that's the change...a lot less original content here, but connections to the other social media channels that I've found it easier to share Red Rider news.

Thanks, as always, for your kind comments and your support. It's been a fun 6 years...and while everything has a season, we'll keep living and dying with our Red Rider student-athletes...just in a little different way.

Go Riders!!

District Brackets Set, Plybon at Akron, College Signees

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 04:38:00 +0000

The girls and boys basketball brackets are set after today's boys seeding. It's a great time of year if you're a basketball fan.

Boys
The Orrville boys received the #2 seed in the Wooster Division 3 District and will kick off tourney play on February 28th at 7pm against the winner of the Loudonville/Waynedale game.

***New this year is that the higher seeded team in the sectional round actually gets to host the game, so regardless of who wins between Loudonville and Waynedale, Orrville will be the higher seeded team, so the game will be played at Bob Knight Gym.***

If the Riders win that game, they will advance to the district round with games to be played at Wooster High School.

Here's the full boy's bracket courtesy of PitmanStats.com.

While I think Orrville deserved some consideration for the #1 seed due to wins over Norwayne and Mansfield Senior...close losses to Coventry (1 point) & Tuslaw (1 point) no doubt hurt those chances. I'm content with the #2 seed and think we'll need to play 3 good games to advance to the Canton Fieldhouse regional.

The boys are coming off a weekend that saw them go on the road and beat Mansfield Senior (first time in 5 years) and beat cross county rival Smithville. They're 11-7 on the season and 6-5 in the OCC. They jump right back into action with games at Northwestern on Tuesday and at Madison on Friday.

Girls
The girls received the #5 seed in the Wooster district and will face Canton Central Catholic on 2/19 at 7pm. Similar to the boys tourney, the higher seed will host the first 2 rounds. Canton Central is the #7 seed so Orrville will host the first round game, but if they win and advance to face Tuslaw (the #3 seed), that game would be at Tuslaw.

If the girls advance to the district round, those games will be played at Wooster High School (not Triway as has been the case for the past few years).

Here's the full girl's bracket.

The girls finish up the regular season this Thursday at home vs Lexington. It's also senior night.

Plybon Shining at Akron
Orrville grad Hannah Plybon is having a nice freshman season for the Akron Zips, averaging 7.5 points per game, 2.5 rebounds per game and 2.2 assists per game. She's 1 of just 4 girls on the team to start all 22 games on the season. The Zips are 8-2 when she scores 10 points or more.

They're in 2nd place in the MAC east with an 8-3 conference record and a 14-8 overall record.

Signing Day
Congrats to 5 OHS seniors on making decisions to continue their athletic careers at the college level this past week.

Trevor Summers - Football - Malone University
Blake Dennis - Football - University of Akron
Stuart Schley - Baseball - West Point (Army)
JT Perez - Baseball - Cincinnati
Elijah Coleman - Track - Kent State

Congrats to the 5 above, and to all seniors looking at continuing their careers, both academic and athletic, in college. If there are others that I'm missing, please let me know.

Basketball: Orrville Boys win 6th Straight

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Sun, 29 Dec 2013 05:55:00 +0000

The month of December didn't start out so well for the boys basketball team. They dropped a hard-fought game at West Holmes by a 60-56 score. This was on the heels of a 41-40 loss to Coventry in the fist game on their home floor. An 0-2 start...even if both losses were by a combined 5 points, was still an 0-2 start.

Not sure what's changed, but December has been pretty good to the Riders since then as they've reeled off 6 straight wins, including their latest win over an undefeated Norwayne squad by a 62-49 score.

The 6-2 record is their best start since going 7-1 to open the 2009-10 season. That season ended in a state runner-up finish.

Road Warriors
What's just as impressive is that 5 of the 6 wins in this streak have been away from Bob Knight Gymnasium. Road wins, especially in the OCC, are precious. Last season, the Riders only won 1 OCC road game....they've already won 2 OCC road games this season. Mental toughness is such a key in winning road games...and this team has that in spades. Lots of senior leadership and mentally tough ballplayers.

Balancing Act
Another key to this season so far is the balanced scoring. With basically an 8-man rotation, each player needs to contribute to the scoring effort..and that's exactly what's been happening. Senior Trevor Summers is leading the way in scoring, but right there with him usually is sophomore Luke Smith, seniors Blake Dennis & Kyle Ritchie and junior Amir Simpson. Seniors Joel Zook and Chad Harrison come off the bench and provide solid minutes and timely scoring as well. Every single guy on the floor plays very unselfishly and looks to make the extra pass. This leads to very efficient play and usually very high percentage shots.

The guys also seem to genuinely enjoy playing ball together. The guys play loose and don't seem to get rattled. Again, this says so much about their mental toughness...and about coaching.

Upcoming
The Riders will play 4 of their next 5 games at home starting this Friday January 3rd vs Mansfield Senior. If you haven't caught a game yet this season, you should really make a point to do so. You can check out the new gym and see a real fun team to watch.

Wooster District
It's a little early to be looking ahead to the district tournament, but there will be a few new local teams there this year that could make the district much more interesting from a local perspective.

The teams in this year's Wooster District are:

Black River, Chippewa, Dalton, Fairless, Hillsdale, Loudonville, Northwestern, Norwayne, Orrville, Smithville, Tuslaw, Waynedale, Wellington

Dalton and Fairless are new, replacing Berkshire and Elyria Catholic. I like the addition of Dalton, they're a traditionally strong program, but have been in Division 4 and would get shipped up to a tough district near Cleveland and run into the private schools up that way.

Also notice that 7 of the 8 WCAL teams (minus Rittman) are in this district.

Speaking of the WCAL..and conferences in general
It sure was nice having a road game that kept you in Wayne County, as was the case tonight travelling to Norwayne. It was 20 minutes for me, door to door. I could really get used to that as opposed to the OCC where drives to Lexington & Clear Fork almost require an overnight stay.

I had heard that we applied to the Portage Trail Conference about possibly joining their conference, but they chose to add Cloverleaf. Not sure it was ever serious from their end, but it does seem like we're looking to get out of the OCC. I don't know if that's any kind of huge secret, just nice to hear that options are being looked at.

This article gives some more detail on Cloverleaf joining the PTC and also mentions another school that has been offered but doesn't identify who it might be. If I had to guess, it's Northwest, as they've been without a conference for a few years now, and would be a closer drive for other schools in the PTC. I think we'd be a nice fit there across all sports, but I can see them pointing out how far of a drive we are. For now it seems we're staying in the OCC.

College Riders Earn Honors
Congrats to Eastern Michigan senior Erin Short on being named All-Academic MAC Honorable Mention & All MAC Tournament Team.
Also congrats to Illinois sophomore Mason Monheim on being named Academic All-Big Ten.

Orrville Fall Sports Update # 2

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 03:57:00 +0000

The Fall Sports season is coming to a close, with some sports already done for the season. Seems like just yesterday we were getting ready for another football season, and now we're 2 weeks away from the Orrville-Wooster game.

Here's what's going on....

Volleyball

As expected the Red Rider volleyball cruised past Chippewa and Manchester to earn a spot in the district semifinals. They'll take on Dalton this Tuesday at 6pm at Smithville for a spot in the district final. Triway and Waynedale match up in the other semifinal at 7:30pm. Should be a great night for Wayne Co. volleyball action. If the Riders win, they return to Smithville on Thursday night for the district title game.

Last week, the OCC post season awards were announced and a special congrats to sophomore Trinniti Hall and senior Lauryn Wright were named OCC 1st Team. Congrats ladies!!

Here's the full list as posted on the OCC website:

2013 OCC All Conference Girls' Volleyball Selections

Offensive Player of the Year - Mackenzie Weaver, Soph. - Lexington

Defensive Player of the Year - Cara Park, Soph. - West Holmes

Coach of the Year - Jenise Vaughn - Ashland

1st Team

Alexis Stoops, Sr. - Ashland

Alannah Lemming, Jr. - Lexington

Ali Brown, Jr. - Madison

Chase Carper, Jr. - Madison

Katie Weaver, Jr. - Madison

Trinniti Hall, Soph. - Orrville

Lauryn Wright, Sr. - Orrville

Paiten Strother, Sr. - West Holmes

Megan Fiscus, Jr. - Wooster

2nd Team

Sydni Carpenter, Jr. - Ashland

Jillian Stuff, Sr. - Clear Fork

Ellie Guth, Sr. - Lexington

Mekaila Grose, Jr. - Madison

Elexius Harris, Sr. - Mansfield

Aleah Stauffer, Soph. - Orrville

Raichelle Erman, Soph. - West Holmes

Makayla Hart, Jr. - Wooster

Honorable Mention

Rachel Benway, Sr. - Ashland

Bryanna Masters, Fr. - Ashland

Mattie Van Orman, Jr. - Clear Fork

Macey Ruhl, Sr. - Clear Fork

Alex Fitzpatrick, Sr. - Lexington

Lauren Slaton, Fr. - Lexington

Maggie Andrews, Sr. - Madison

Liz Sutter, Sr. - Madison

Jeryn Reese, Jr. - Mansfield

Janae Harris, Sr. - Mansfield

Sarah Auble, Soph. - Orrville

McKinley Smith, Fr. - Orrville

Madison Cox, Soph. - West Holmes

Brittleigh Macaulay, Soph. - West Holmes

Bri Bocook, Jr. - Wooster

Syd Logee, Sr. - Wooster

It sure is encouraging to see that 4 of the 5 Orrville honorees are sophomores and freshmen. I've heard good things about the middle school volleyball teams, and with a core of underclassmen returning next year, it sure seems that the volleyball program is in good hands.

Cross Country

Congrats to the Orrville girls cross country team. They placed 5 runners in the top 31 at this past Saturday's district run at Malone University to finish 4th as a team and advance to next week's regional meet. It's the 2nd straight year the team advanced to regionals and the 4th straight year that Haley has advanced to regionals.

Leading the way was senior Haley Woodruff who finished 6th overall, sophomore Jessica Eby was close behind in 15th place, and the Madigan twins, Kaitlyn and Kayla, both juniors, finished 21st and 25th respectively. Megan Buchwalter (Soph.) finished 31st, Courtney Stiffler (Soph.) 45th and Sara Stiles (Junior) 51st.

Again, notice all those underclassmen...other than Woodruff, everyone will be back next year. Tip of the cap to Coach Reed and the entire cross country program. Take a lot of dedication to be a cross country runner. You're simultaneously competing against the other runner and yourself.

Great job ladies!!!

Football

Tough loss for the football team last Friday at Madison. This was one the Riders needed badly to keep their playoff hopes alive. They still have a chance to play in week 11 according to JoeEitel.com, but will need to win their last 2 games (at Clear Fork and vs. Wooster) and probably get some help from other teams in the region losing. Kids are working hard, but it's always an uphill battle in the OCC, where Orrville is the smallest team both in participation and enrollment. The margin for error is so slim. I know it may not solve all our problems, but I still say the OCC is too big for us. It's time to find a conference with schools of similar size.

Wooster Week Schedule

Two dates of importance for the upcoming Wooster Week. Always a fun week of special events. Remember, the game is on a Saturday (7pm) again this year. So the parade and bonfire will be on Friday night, November 1st beginning at 7pm. The "adult" Beat Wooster party will be held at 9pm at the VFW. This event is being planned by the senior football parents. Light snacks and soft drinks will be provided. I believe there will be a "coach look-a-like" contest, as well as an award for the attendee dressed with the most Red Rider Spirit. Free of charge, must be 21 or over.

Soccer

Congrats to the OHS soccer team on another good season. They finished 7th in the OCC tournament (beating West Holmes in OCC tourney play) and won an OHSAA tournament game for the 3rd straight year, defeating Rittman 2-1. They lost 5-0 to #1 seed Chippewa this past weekend. Congrats Coach Duskey and the Red Rider soccer team. Keep working hard!!

Baseball

I know baseball is a spring sport, but this item came across my twitter feed last week.

OH: Orrville 2014 LHP/1B JT Perez commits to Cincinnati. 3rd commit to the Bearcats from the Fall Unsigned Senior Games.
— Prep Baseball Report (@prepbaseball) October 19, 2013

Congrats to JT & his family. Guessing it's been a while since Orrville baseball has produced a D-1 college commit. Hope he's not the last senior baseball player to get an offer to play college ball.

Winter Sports Schedule

In another month, winter sports will be kicking off. Here's the schedule for boys basketball, girls basketball and wrestling.

Note some changes on the boys basketball schedule. Gone is the opening game against Shelby. It will now be Coventry kicking off the season on Saturday November 30th, the first game in the new gym. They will also be participating for the first time in the Jack Greynolds Classic in Barberton. They will face Northwest in the first game of the day at 11am on December 7th (Saturday).

We will also be playing 4 games vs. the WCAL this year with games vs. Waynedale, Norwayne, Northwestern and Smithville. Only one of those games will be at home, the Smithville game. The Norwayne & Northwestern games will be at those schools while the Waynedale game will be at the WQKT Smitty Classic.

Here's the full lineup for this year's Smitty Classic.

The girls will not be playing in the Classic in the Country after playing in the classic the last 2 years. Instead, they'll be participating in the Tiger Prep Shootout at Pickerington High School on Jan. 19th (Sunday) vs. Pickerington.

One last thing....

Got an anonymous (of course) comment sent to me this week criticizing the content of this site...basically saying that I was not covering ALL sports equally.. First off, I won't apologize for the content of this site, I'm proud of it, and have realized long ago that you can't please everyone, so why try.

Once again allow me to remind my readers...I'm not a reporter. I don't "cover" games. I'm basically an aggregator of news and information pertaining to Orrville sports. I collect info I can find on the web and share it with Red Rider Nation, and tweet out scores when I do attend games. Yes, this site is heavy on football and basketball, but those are popular sports that get a lot of coverage. I try to put as much out there on all sports...but if I'm not being notified of scores and results, I can't tweet it out to followers or post it on Facebook. If you're looking for in-depth write-ups on all sports, you're going to be sorely disappointed.

If you're attending games and taking photos, post them to Facebook and tag "Orrville Red Rider Sports Blog" so I'll see them.

If your son/daughter is playing sports in college, email me and let me know.

If you're at a game, tweet me the result.

Trust me, I'd love nothing more than for someone to do what I do, but better. I'd love to see the school take more of an active role in challenging students wishing to get into journalism to do game write-ups and post it to the school website.

My time to do this site is shrinking and I've mentioned that before. Several posts a week are down to one or two a month. I don't do football game previews anymore if you haven't noticed. The day is quickly approaching where this site will be a reference site only...there won't be any updates for folks to complain about.

Luckily these kind of comments are in the minority...but everything has it's time. I sincerely hope that the broad range of topics in this update was pleasing to all my readers...even the anonymous ones.

GO RIDERS!!

Orrville Fall Sports Update #1

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 04:18:00 +0000

I'll try to do these kind of updates every few weeks....there's a lot going on, so prepare for an overload of information, but it's all good stuff.

Football
If you remember my football preview, I said the following:

Our first 4 games are John Marshall at home, at Triway, then Northwest & Lexington at home....we have a real opportunity to get off to a hot start and you never know how the season will go if that happens. We've seen what confidence (and yes, swagger) can do to a team. If this team gets off to a good start and sees the results of their hard work paying off in wins, it could be a very interesting season.

I'm certainly not saying I predicted 3-0, but I certainly was saying that is was possible...very possible in fact. I think the first 3 weeks have great for everyone's psyche, but especially the 40+ kids on the roster. They're buying in, they're seeing results due to effort and they're seeing that the coaches are doing their best to put them in the best position possible to win.

Last week's 28-22 win over Northwest was a gutsy effort. The game seemed to be slipping away from us in the 3rd quarter but the kids refused to quit and found a way to win.

It's nice hearing how this team seems to get along...from seniors to freshmen, and that's a very big thing.

The only potential downside is that we're only 3 weeks into the season, and about to embark on another 7-week grinder of an Ohio Cardinal Conference schedule. Again, health will be so key. I think this team has it in them to compete each and every week and may spring a few upsets on the way to a week 10 showdown with Wooster that very well may have playoff implications....yes I said playoffs.

But lets stick to 1 week at a time....4-0 heading into a very tough stretch of games would be the very best possible outcome.

If Coach Davault and his staff take this program from 1-9 a year ago to the playoffs this year, he deserves serious recognition for coach of the year honors. You have to give him credit for going back to the drawing board after last year and installing a lot of new plays and formations. It's worked so far and he's called all the right shots with putting kids in the right spots.

#600
With a win this Friday at home versus Lexington, Orrville will become just the 25th program in state history to record 600 all-time wins. Here's the current list as it's listed on the Steubenville site rollredroll.com, which is a much more complete list that what's on the OHSAA site, it's a who's who of Ohio football:

Massillon Washington Tigers	824	249	35
Canton McKinley Bulldogs	796	332	42
Steubenville Big Red	749	305	35
Warren G. Harding Raiders	678	424	52
Fostoria Senior Redmen	677	425	48
Martins Ferry Purple Riders	666	351	35
Sandusky Blue Streaks	660	371	42
Dover Crimson Tornadoes	658	340	44
Bellaire Big Reds	653	343	53
Cleveland St. Ignatius Wildcats	652	301	38
Ironton Tigers	646	384	44
Hamilton Big Blue	640	496	25
Cincinnati Wyoming Cowboys	639	191	48
Troy Trojans	637	306	38
Middletown Middies	636	309	38
Fremont Ross Little Giants	626	407	48
Shelby Whippets	625	379	42
New Philadelphia Quakers	624	410	51
University School Preppers	617	362	32
Mogadore Wildcats	612	263	20
Upper Arlington Golden Bears	611	221	23
Versailles Tigers	604	279	27
Napoleon Wildcats	602	320	33
Piqua Indians	600	384	43
Orrville Red Riders	599	363	41

We'd be only the 5th northeast Ohio public school (joining McKinley, Massillon, Mogadore and Warren Harding) as 600 win programs. That's quite a class of schools.

Riders Ranked
In the first AP State Football Poll, the Riders checked in a #10 in Division 5 and even earned a first place vote from someone. I'd guess the last time we cracked the top 10 was in 2011, but that's just a guess. Take AP polls with a grain of salt though. The computer polls are what matter in terms of the playoffs, and as of right now the Riders are on top of Region 16.

The volleyball team is also ranked in the latest Ohio High School Volleyball Coaches Association poll, at #16 in Division 3. Again, take with a grain of salt, but I think that's a little low for a team coming off a Final 4 appearance and a team that's playing in a very tough volleyball conference.

Orrville Volleyball wins own invite, beats Wooster
The Red Rider volleyball team is on quite a roll, winning the inaugural 8-team Orrville Invite this past Saturday, defeating Hoover in the championship game and then rolling over Wooster tonight in 3 games. They are currently tied atop the OCC standings with Madison.

Hole in One...for the 3rd time
Special congrats to senior golfer Layne Scheufler on carding his 3rd hole-in-one in his high school career. I'm still waiting on my first, and he's sunk 3 just while in high school!! This article says the odds of a hole-in-one are 12,500 to 1....so he's defied those odds 3 times.

Riders on the Radio
This Friday's game versus Lexington will be broadcast on 104.5 WQKT and I think it's the first game they've done at our stadium since the Wooster game in 2011. Nice to have the best radio crew in the state back to Red Rider Stadium.

Soccer gets 1st OCC win
Congrats to the soccer team for their big 3-2 win over West Holmes to clinch their first conference win on the season. Keep working hard!!

Car Raffle
Please consider purchasing raffle tickets for the 2014 Chevy Cruze that was kindly donated by Serpentini Chevrolet. Tickets are $10 each or 6 for $50. The Booster Club keeps every dime of ticket sales money to benefit ALL OHS sports teams.

Home Game Crowds
Would love to see a much bigger crowd this Friday for the Lexington game. Last week's crowd was ok, but we can certainly do better. These kids are working their tails off to get Red Rider football back on the map and deserve our support in the process. Weather is supposed to be nice on Friday, so there's really no excuse.

2013 Football Preview...and a special gift to my readers

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 03:46:00 +0000

Before we get to the 2013 Orrville Football outlook, I wanted to share a special project I've been working on over the past month.

It's the culmination of a project that took many hours of research to compile....and it's something that every Red Rider football fan needs to see.

It's my honor to give you the 2013 Orrville Football Fan/Media Guide. It's basically a 12 page reference guide with current info as well as historical info.

Click the link below to view the file. You can also save it on your own computer or print it out.

Orrville Football 2013 Fan/Media Guide

Here's the breakdown of all 11 pages:

Page 1 is the 2013 football roster

Page 2 is the 2013 Varsity schedule

Page 3 is a "Master Schedule" showing all 10 of our opponents and their complete schedule

Page 4 is Orrville Football "by the numbers" with detailing stats on our playoff history, league titles, etc.

Page 5 & 6 is our all-time record broken down by each opponent we've ever played

Page 7 is our all-time coaching history

Page 8 is our all-time football captains list

Page 9 & 10 is our all-time playoff history with scores of all 50 playoff games

Page 11 is a game-by-game breakdown of the Orrville-Wooster rivalry.

Again, feel free to print it out or save it to your computer. I'd like to update this annually.

Now on to 2013.................................................................................

Here's the article that I submitted to the most recent issue of OrrViews. I'll add to the article below.

With last year’s 1-win season in the rearview mirror, Orrville head coach Doug Davault and the Red Rider football team are excited to get 2013 season started.

Now in his 8^th season as head coach with a 51-30 record, Davault feels he has a good group of kids and the right mix and size, speed and smarts to get Orrville football back on track.

“We really try not to say too much about last year, we like to talk about where we are and where we’re heading,” said Davault. “But all of the coaches and players are excited to put last year behind us and get the season started and play that first game.”

The four senior captains for 2013 are Trevor Summers (TE/LB), Kyle Ritchie (WR/DB), Harrison Brown (OL/DL) and Joel Zook (RB/DB). They will be counted on to lead the team all year and according to the coach, they’ve already begun stepping into that role.

“Our captains are doing what we ask them to do and they’re really leading the charge,” Davault said. “It’s part of the Orrville tradition that your captains take charge; it’s their team.”

One of the new faces on the 2013 team will be sophomore quarterback Luke Smith. He takes over for 3-year starter Kyle Lichti.

“I’m very impressed, I have to keep reminding myself that he’s just a sophomore,” said Davault of his new signal caller. “He throws the ball well, has good vision and poise & I don’t think the moment of the game will be a problem for him.”

Seniors Elijah Coleman, Chandler Smith, Kyle Ritchie and Trevor Summers will be receiving targets for Smith while a group of linemen led by seniors Harrison Brown & Connor Davis, juniors JJ Miller & Amir Simpson, sophomores Jacob Zimmerman, Jacob Hochstetler and Korbin Sprowls will provide protection on the offensive and defensive line.

Running backs will be led by Senior Joel Zook with junior Keontae Owens and freshmen Jacob Hershberger & Austin Domer potentially seeing time as well.

On defense, senior Trevor Summers will anchor the defense at linebacker. He’ll be joined by juniors Colton Shrader, Jachai Palmer and Corre Shaffer at linebacker, while seniors Kyle Ritchie, Joel Zook, Elijah Coleman and Chandler Smith will man the defensive backfield along with junior Nick Fetty.

The Red Riders kick off the 2013 season at home on August 30^th against Cleveland John Marshall. This is a slight change in the schedule as Cleveland Lincoln West was scheduled to travel to Orrville, but due to low numbers on their team, it was agreed to replace them with the Lawyers of John Marshall.

Orrville will travel to Triway in week 2, this will be the first game on Triway’s new turf field. The Red Riders will round out the non-conference portion of the schedule in week 3 as they host Northwest. The next 7 weeks will be against Ohio Cardinal Conference competition, which will again prove a difficult test for the Riders, who by enrollment numbers are the smallest school in the conference.

“I think the conference will be strong again, there are teams with lots of athletes,” said Davault. “We’re going to have to be at our best every week.”

The annual week 10 matchup against Wooster at Heartland Field will be the first game in the 100+ year rivalry to be played on turf.

With participation in the low 40’s counting all freshmen as well as sophomores, juniors and seniors, staying healthy is as important as it’s ever been.

“If we stay healthy, we’ll compete, if we don’t, we’re going to struggle,” Davault added. “But we’ll compete one play at a time and try to focus on the little details that can mean the difference between a win and a loss.”

Lastly, Davault stressed the need to get the season off to a good start by winning early.

“Kids need to know that all the hard work they’re putting in is prospering into something. We would love to get off to a great start, that confidence and belief that would come with it is huge.”

I honestly think this could be a team to surprise people this year. There's strong leadership at the top with a large senior class and 4 seasoned senior leaders in Zook, Brown, Ritchie and Summers. It all starts with those 4. All 4 need to have strong seasons on both sides of the ball. I think we have some youth on the team that will have an impact, and some kids that have been waiting in the wings to make an impact. We haze an offense and defensive line with some good size for the first time in a while....how that group gels and opens holes for the run game and protects Luke Smith at QB will obviously be a very important thing.

The biggest keys are to stay healthy and to get off to a good start. With low numbers, we have many kids playing offense and defense. This isn't anything new in Orrville, but our depth is very shallow. If a key player gets hurt, it's the equivalent of losing 2-3 kids. A team our size just can't absorb losses like that and be the same team.

Getting off to a quick start is so key this year. Our first 4 games are John Marshall at home, at Triway, then Northwest & Lexington at home....we have a real opportunity to get off to a hot start and you never know how the season will go if that happens. We've seen what confidence (and yes, swagger) can do to a team. If this team gets off to a good start and sees the results of their hard work paying off in wins, it could be a very interesting season.

With the addition of a 7th division, Orrville is now a D-5 school, playing a largely D-2 and D-3 schedule. It's not inconceivable to go 5-5 and make the playoffs.

We'll be the smaller school in terms of enrollment, 10 out of 10 weeks this year.....and the OCC will be as competitive as ever. This wont be an easy road. Our kids are never afraid of a challenge and will not back down. We will never be the biggest school, but I'll take the heart of our kids any day of the week.

These are good kids who have worked hard to get here and deserve our support. Nobody wants 1-9 again and these kids are going to do everything in their ability to not let that happen.

Let's start with a win Friday night, on our turf, and have a healthy roster walking off the field after the game, heading to Triway for a week 2 showdown with the Titans on their turf.

GO RIDERS!!!!

Community Night Details - Levy News - Red Rider Swag

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 04:06:00 +0000

Just a quick few items as we get ready to start another school year and another high school sports season....but first...I need to do my part for this levy vote next week.

Levy News
We're inside of 1 week until the community is asked to approve a renewal levy to assist our schools. This is a no-brainer for me. I'll be voting for the renewal and would ask you to do the same. If this levy is defeated, money already being collected by the schools would disappear and make a difficult financial situation even worse.

I'm hearing that if this levy passes, it will not solve the entire financial crisis, but much less "new" levy money will need to be approved by voters in the future if we can pass this renewal levy. It makes sense for Orrville and I hope to see it pass easily.

For the "average" home in Orrville, this levy represents about $20 per month, for some it's more than that, some less....again...this is money that is already being collected by the schools. They are not asking for new money. I'd really hate to think that the town would vote this levy down just to save $20 a month in their budget. I'd think there would be much better ways to find $20 in your budget than at the expense of the schools.

SUPPORT ORRVILLE SCHOOLS ON AUGUST 6TH!

"Meet the Team Night + Tour of new High School"
A community night has been scheduled for Friday August 16th at the high school and football stadium. See below for the schedule of events that evening:

3:00-5:45 - Open football practice at Red Rider Stadium
4:00-7:00 - ORRVILLE HIGH SCHOOL COMMUNITY OPEN HOUSE
5:30-7:00 - Open concession stand at the football stadium.

7:00 - Meet the fall sports team night at Red Rider Stadium

7:30 - OHSAA required Informational meeting for fall sport parents. (Grades 7-12)

If you recall, the "Meet the Team" function has been held in the downtown area for the past few years. I think this change will be a better venue for this event. The school will be much more accessible from a parking standpoint, and the stadium will be a nice venue for coaches to introduce their captains, say a quick word about the upcoming season and give fans and younger kids the opportunity to come out on the turf and meet the teams.

Add in a chance to tour the new high school and it should be a good night.

While you're in the gym, make sure to check out the new banners that were paid for by the Booster Club. They commemorate our 6 team state titles and our 22 team final 4's in all sports. What a great look and a wonderful celebration of our athletic tradition.

Booster Club Info
As always at this time of year, the Orrville ALL SPORTS Booster Club is conducting their membership drive and for folks wishing to join at the Elite level ($50), this year's spirit item is a really neat one. A Red Rider Tervis tumbler mug shown below.

The Booster Club is always seeking volunteers to help sell programs, 50/50 tickets or work in the concession stand. In my opinion, every parent of an athlete should be required to work at least 1 event that their son/daughter is not involved in. The Booster Club spends thousands of dollars a year for the benefit of all Orrville sports.

Red Rider Gear
Expert T's is once again selling Orrville football and Orrville volleyball shirts for the upcoming season. Order forms for both are shown below. Feel free to print out a form and turn it in at their store. I really like this year's designs.

That's all for now....we're inside of 1 month until the start of the fall sports season and the first home football game on August 30th.

By The Numbers: Does Orrville belong in the Ohio Cardinal Conference?

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 04:11:00 +0000

With the release last week of the new OHSAA enrollment numbers, the discussion has come up again as to whether we belong in the Ohio Cardinal Conference...and by numbers alone, we simply don't. But is there more to it than that? I'm not so sure, but in the following post, I'll lay out the numbers and try to let that make my point for me.

If you don't want to read the stats, I'll save you the time, I think it's time for us to get out of the OCC....and I have one solution that I think would work. But you'll have to read the whole post to get to that part.

Come on....you know you want to.

First off...the numbers. Here is the enrollment of all the OCC schools, first by boys, then girls.

Boys Enrollment
1. Wooster - 426
2. Mansfield Sr. - 423
3. Ashland - 410
4. Madison - 384
5. West Holmes - 334
6. Lexington - 299
7. Clear Fork - 237
8. Orrville - 185

Girls Enrollment
1. Wooster - 455
2. Ashland - 400
3. Mansfield Sr. - 351
4. Madison - 334
5. Lexington - 283
6. West Holmes - 275
7. Clear Fork - 225
8. Orrville - 174

So...in both boys and girls sports, Orrville is the smallest school in the OCC, and it's not really that close. Our enrollment could increase by 20% in both boys and girls sports, and we'd still be the smallest school in the conference.

In numbers alone, we simply don't belong.

OCC Titles
In the 16 common sports among all OCC teams, here's the distribution of OCC titles since 2003.

1. Lexington - 64
2. Ashland - 36
3. Wooster - 24
4. West Holmes - 12
5. Madison - 11
6. Orrville - 10
7. Mansfield Senior - 9
8. Clear Fork - 8

The clear separator in this list is Lexington's dominance in both boys and girls tennis where they have won 19 of 20 possible OCC titles. If those are removed, Lexington's 45 OCC titles are still best among the eight schools, but the gap isn't as wide.

Oddly enough, the only OCC sport in which every team has at least 1 conference title is football.

So Lexington, is averaging over 6 OCC titles per school year while Orrville is averaging 1 per school year.

Obviously our total isn't anywhere close to the top, but 70% of all OCC titles are being won by Wooster, Lexington or Ashland, so Orrville has company near the bottom of this list.

Travel
Another big knock against the OCC is the travel time. The average travel time from Orrville to any OCC school is 51 minutes....with the shortest drive being 24 minutes to Wooster and the longest drive being over an hour to both Lexington and Clear Fork.

Comparing this to the old All-Ohio League (Orrville, Northwest, Manchester, Fairless, Coventry, Triway, West Holmes) from the 1980's....the average travel time was just 32 minutes with the shortest trip being 24 minutes to Triway and the longest being 46 minutes to West Holmes. Putting this a different way, the LONGEST trip in the AOL was shorter than the AVERAGE trip in the current OCC.

Numbers don't need to prove this fact, just look at our stands on a Friday night in Lexington or Clear Fork.

Proposed Solution
It's real simple....in my opinion we should run form the OCC. Our best teams haven't won OCC titles. Just look at this past year. Final Four qualifiers in volleyball & girls basketball, but neither team won the OCC. We've had final four football teams and state finalists in basketball that didn't win the OCC also.

I know this isn't the popular opinion and flys in the face of our "Rider Pride" that we've developed over the past few decades, but let's face facts.....most years we're not going to be competitive when we have half the enrollment of the rest of the conference. We've won OCC titles in just 5 sports, that's better than only Clear Fork (4) and Senior (2).

It's a smart move competitively and financially....and that's just a fact. It may not happen right away, but if we have a dip in talent or an even bigger dip in enrollment, we're going to struggle even more to be competitive, and that could hurt numbers coming out for all sports. Kids don't want to be on the losing end of things over and over.

Sure the OCC prepares us for tournament play, and we've seen that play out in football, basketball and most recently in baseball, but it boils down to a numbers game and in the smaller sports, we just don't have the depth to realistically compete. Sports like golf, wrestling, cross country, soccer & tennis just can't match the depth of schools like Ashland, Wooster and Lexington.

So OK...we need to get out of the OCC...easier said than done....and if we do, where do we go? I know a conference that I think we'd be a good fit both enrollment-wise and geographically. Where you ask?? I don't know if you're ready to hear this....but here goes.

THE WAYNE COUNTY ATHLETIC LEAGUE

Let's face it...the Wayne Co. Athletic League is where we belong, and put aside all the other stuff for a minute and let's look at the numbers first. If we were to join the WCAL, here's how the enrollment numbers would look.

Boys Enrollment

1. Orrville - 185

1. Waynedale - 185

3. Northwestern - 183

4. Chippewa - 179

5. Norwayne - 166

6. Smithville - 154

7. Hillsdale - 134

8. Dalton - 127

9. Rittman - 118

Girls Enrollment

1. Chippewa - 179

2. Orrville - 174

3. Northwestern - 166

4. Smithville - 150

5. Norwayne - 142

6. Waynedale - 129

7. Dalton - 115

8. Rittman - 110

9. Hillsdale - 109

Much more balanced, no? Yes, we're the biggest boys school, and 2nd biggest girls school, but the top 6 schools in the conference are separated by just 31 boys and 50 girls. That's a much smaller gap than exists currently in the OCC.

Travel Time

To me, the big advantage to the WCAL is travel time. The average trip to any WCAL school is only 22 minutes with the longest trip to Hillsdale (35 minutes) and the short trip to Smithville (12 minutes). That's more than half of the 51 minute average drive in the OCC currently. From a geography standpoint, it's clear cut that the WCAL is a better fit. That's some serious cost savings too in terms of bus fuel. Remember, in the OCC, we have buses going to Richland County for middle school teams, for freshman teams and for JV/Varsity. I can't even imagine the cost per year....but if we were in the WCAL instead, those costs really get slashed.

Attendance

Another biggie to me is that, in my opinion, joining the WCAL would really increase attendance at away games...something that is very obviously lacking in the OCC. Every road game in the WCAL would be the home team's super bowl. They'd circle their calendar for a shot at Orrville on their home field. And ticket sales would be huge for both schools. It would be a great atmosphere each and every Friday night.

9 teams or 10?

If just Orrville is added that would be 9 teams in the WCAL...and that's an odd number which can make scheduling tough. You need a 10th team to balance things out and make scheduling easier....and my only suggestion is to add another Wayne Co. team, the Triway Titans.

That would make 10 teams and unless you wanted to schedule all 9 league games and just 1 non-conference game (for us it would be the Wooster game) it would make more sense to divide the county league into 2 divisions, a small school and a large school division. Here's what it would look like if you put the 5 biggest schools (boys & girls counts combined) into one division and the 5 smallest into another:

Big Division

Triway - 417

Chippewa - 364

Orrville - 359

Northwestern - 349

Waynedale - 314

Small Division

Norwayne - 308

Smithville - 304

Hillsdale - 243

Dalton - 242

Rittman - 228

I really like how that looks. Using football as an example, you couldn't play all 9 WCAL teams in a season, so I'd propose playing 7 league games and 4 of those 7 being the other 4 teams in your division every single year, and then a rotating 3 teams from the other division. I think some care would need to be taken so that the biggest school is not playing the smallest school year in and year out, at least in football.

Here's what a possible schedule would look like for Orrville (conference games in red).

Week 1 - Northwest (non-conf.)

Week 2 - West Holmes (non-conf.)

Week 3 - Smithville (rotating small school opponent)

Week 4 - Chippewa

Week 5 - Northwestern

Week 6 - Norwayne (rotating small school opponent)

Week 7 - Hillsdale (rotating small school opponent)

Week 8 - Waynedale

Week 9 - Triway

Week 10 - Wooster (non-conf.)

The games against teams in the small school division would rotate every 2 years...so we'd play Smithville, Norwayne and Hillsdale for 2 years, then Dalton and Rittman would rotate in for 2 years.

The potential matchups in this new league would be awesome....Orrville vs. Triway (still), Norwayne vs. Triway, Orrville vs. Smithville, Norwayne vs. Orrville would be new rivalries to go along with existing WCAL rivalries...it would really bring the area out to see these games.

Starting league play in week 3 also allows Orrville to maintain their long-standing week 10 rivalry with Wooster...we would just need 1 other league team to start their conference play in week 3 also to make this work.

Would it work?

I know joining the WCAL would be seen by some as blasphemy, but is it all so crazy to not even consider that we fit best there? Our enrollment numbers are in line with WCAL schools and I believe across the board, we would compete better in all sports in the WCAL. This is the new reality.

I don't think we'd dominate either...we'd have to check our ego at the door and realize that we will lose to county schools. The Norwayne playoff game a few years ago should have taken care of most of that invincibility complex. We'd be challenged and be seen by the rest of the league as the "big bad wolf," no matter our record. We'd have a target on our backs for 7 straight weeks and I think that would motivate our kids just like playing up in the OCC does now.

A vote by the other schools would be interesting, especially since 2 current WCAL schools have the same superintendent as Orrville. Rittman and Waynedale would probably have to abstain from voting due to a conflict of interest, so that would leave the other 6 (Rittman, Smithville, Hillsdale, Dalton, Northwestern & Norwayne) to vote us in or out. Who knows how that would turn out given the politics at play, but it should would be neat to see that process play out.

What does Rider Nation think?
So given the above information, what do you think about us getting out of the OCC? Obviously with our effort to join the NBC along with Northwest back in January, we're looking for the right situation. My question to you....is the "right situation" right here in Wayne County?

Vote in the poll below or leave me a comment with your thoughts.

Catching up....

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Fri, 21 Jun 2013 04:14:00 +0000

Orrville track athletes (L to R) Hannah Plybon, Abrea Gibson, Kiauna McDuffie, Elijah Coleman, Tyrone White, Rylee Scott, Noel Hartmann & Jessica Eby at the State Track Meet at Jesse Owens Stadium. (Photo Courtesy of Andy Vernon)

Was out of town last week and have had a real busy past six weeks...time to get caught up.

Read below for a wrap up of the spring sports season, changes to the OHSAA football structure, the final OCC All-Sports standings, and more!

Spring Sports Recap
A big congrats to the 3 Red Rider track athletes who finished "on the podium" at the state track meet last weekend. Freshman Jessica Eby surprised the entire area by finishing 5th in the 300m Hurdles, Senior Tyrone White finished 7th in the 800m run and junior Elijah Coleman finished 3rd in the 400m run. All 3 earned All-Ohio honors by finishing in the top 8.

While all of the Orrville runners put up excellent times at state, none of the 3 were able to break school records in the process....and that says so much about how high the bar is at Orrville when it comes to track. Putting 3 kids on the podium in one weekend would be a tremendous achievement at any other school in the area, but it's sort of ho-hum at Orrville, where track success is simply expected.

The baseball team fell short of their first trip to Columbus since 1976 when they fell to Youngstown Ursuline in the regional final by a 4-1 score. Record-wise, it wasn't the most impressive year, but the OCC schedule was again a meat grinder and prepared the Riders well for tournament play, capturing a 2nd straight district title and advancing one game farther than last year.

OHS Football..Welcome to Division 5
Ever since the state announced they would add a 7th division in football a year ago, it was anticipated that Orrville would drop to division 5...and last week it was made official as Orrville has been officially placed in Division 5 with 185 boys in grades 9, 10 & 11.

Looking back at my own site, I see we were at 211 boys when the count was done in 2008 and 214 boys in 2011. A drop in 2013 to 185 means we've dropped about 15% in enrollment in just the last 2 years.

The girls numbers are down as well, from 182 in 2008 to 174 now, but not as dramatically.

If the state still had the 6 division alignment for football, the Red Riders would still be in Division 4, but just barely. The cutoff for division 4 in 2011 was 177 boys, meaning we'd be one of the smallest Division 4 schools in the state.

We're joined in division 5 by county schools (Northwestern, Norwayne, Chippewa, Waynedale) and other locals Canton CC, Tuslaw, Fairless & Loudonville. We will be playing for 1 of 8 playoff spots in the Northwest region and the 5 Wayne County teams will be the easternmost teams in the region. Any playoff appearance by any of the 5 will likely result in some longer trips to playoff games.

With the addition of a 7th division, it will also mean that the state championship weekend in Massillon & Canton will have an extra game on Thursday night in addition to the 3 games on Friday & 3 on Saturday. This year will also be the last for the games to be in Massillon/Canton. Starting in 2014, games will be played at Ohio Stadium.

All-Time Football Record Correction
There's been slight correct to our all-time football record, and it involves a game played almost 100 years ago. My records from 1915 show a 25-7 win over Massillon in the first week of the season. But this link doesn't show the game as part of Massillon's schedule that year. Here's the text from an article about an Orrville/Massillon game from 1916, and it clearly notes the game as a scrimmage:

Massillon high school's orange and black football squad ran rough shod over Orrville high Saturday afternoon at Orrville, smothering the Wayne county warriors under a 63 to 0 score. It was just as advertised, a practice game for Coach Snavely's gridders.

The game enabled the local tutor to get a line on the ability of the men seeking varsity positions. The season opens next Saturday with Uhrichsville here.

I just love the way newspapers used to write. Anyway, I'm 100% certain that the game from 1915 was a scrimmage, and therefore should not count in our all-time win total.

Before this revelation, I had our win total at 597...this would back us up 1 win to 596 heading into the 2013 season, and make our new all-time record 596-364-41

OCC All-Sports Trophy
Lexington won another OCC All-Sports title in 2012-13, their 9th straight in 10 years the league has given the award. Orrville finished 6th. I'm not sure we've ever finished in the top 4 of the all-sports points.

It's just amazing to me that we've been in the OCC for a decade now, and have very few conference titles to our name. Other than a shared football title in 2005, boys sports have ZERO OCC titles.

Girls sports have fared a little better, boasting 3 in basketball, 3 in volleyball, 1 in softball and 2 in track....9 total.

That's 10 total OCC titles in 10 years in the league...or an OCC title in 1 sport per year on average. To compare, Lexington won SEVEN OCC titles in this past school year alone.

I know the OCC prepares us for post-season play, but too many of our sports have no chance to ever compete for an OCC title. The conference is simply too big for us. We could double our enrollment and still not be in the top half of the league in terms of size.

Three District Champions in One Week!!

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Tue, 28 May 2013 21:41:00 +0000

The Orrville boys & girls track teams pose with their district title trophies on the track at Midview High School. (Photo courtesy of Andy Vernon)

It was a pretty solid week for spring sports as Red Rider teams captured not one, not two, but THREE district crowns.

The baseball team beat Chippewa 6-5 to capture their 2nd straight district title while the boys and girls track team both took 1st place at the Midview district, making it a clean sweep.

The girls track team only won 3 of the 17 events, but placed in all but 1 event, accumulating 127 points on the day, beating 2nd place Triway (115 pts.) and 3rd place Keystone (100 pts.). They improved on their 2012 district showing (85 pts. and 3rd place). They will move on to the Bedford regional this week.

The boys track team netted 100 points on the day, besting 2nd place Northwestern (94 pts.) and 3rd place Norwayne (83 pts.) to win the Midview district for a 2nd year in a row. They will move on to the Lexington regional this week.

For up-to-date track results this weekend, check out Baumspage.com. The link for boys results is here and girls results here. Good luck to both teams this weekend as they seek to continue the annual tradition of sending multiple athletes to Columbus for the state meet.

The baseball team captured their 2nd straight district title this past week by defeating Chippewa, 6-5. The Riders difficult OCC regular season schedule no doubt helped to prepare them for tournament play (as is the case in most sports). The Riders will head to Massillon's Ducky Schroeder Field this Thursday to take on Wickliffe Thursday at 5pm. If they win, they'll return to Massillon Friday to take on the winner of Youngstown Ursuline and Keystone.

The baseball team now has 7 regional appearances in program history. First was in 1976, then 1979, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2012 and now 2013. Only the 1976 team made it out of regionals. That team ended as state runner ups.

And finally, it appears that from this link on the Orrville schools website that Orrville AD Kent Smith has submitted his intent to retire as a teacher in the district. Not sure what this means, and not sure a final decision has been made, about his position as athletic director. Pretty sure this means he will no longer be teaching, but may return as AD if an agreement can be reached, but that seems up in the air as well. I've heard several other names already within the district who would take over the AD position in addition to their existing duties...but none of this is confirmed and seems to be changing on a daily basis.

The two failures of the levy certainly played a huge part in this as the athletic department secretary position was first reduced after the first levy failed, then eliminated totally after the levy failure earlier this month, and I believe additional duties were to be added to Kent's already full plate as teacher, AD and tennis coach. I'm sure every teacher and administrator in the district will see their duties and responsibilities increase as a result of trying to provide the same level of service to our students will fewer staff on hand, and the AD role was no different.

Whatever the outcome is, Kent should be commended for his years of service to the school and community. He's "first class" all the way and does things the right way. It's unfortunate to lose someone with such tireless "Red Rider" spirit and I hope in some capacity he can still be involved with the school. I have heard he will still be tennis coach, but as I mentioned above, this seems to be changing daily, so I guess we'll all find out together.

With the uncertain financial picture in the district right now, tough decisions like this have to be made, and the end result will be that good people will no longer be involved in the lives of our young people. This isn't just a "sports" thing either. That's the unfortunate reality of levy failure.

Good luck to the track teams and the baseball team as they seek to punch their tickets to Columbus!!

Go Riders!!

Announcing the 2013 Orrville High School Sports Hall of Fame Induction Class

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Fri, 24 May 2013 02:51:00 +0000

The 12th biennial induction class of the Orrville High School Sports Hall of Fame has been nominated and this year's class of 8, set to be inducted this September, is very impressive.

Without further ado...here is the 2013 induction class:

Tommy Brenner (Class of 2005)

Football captain in 2004, 2-time All-Ohio, 2nd most receiving yards in school history
Played football on scholarship at Ashland University. Was leading tackler in 2008 as well as All-GLIAC selection

Mike Burkholder (Coach)

18 years as track and football coach at OHS as well as science teacher.
Head coach of 1999 Boys track team that won a state title. Had 2 runner-up finishes at state as well as a 3rd place finish. Coached numerous state title winners and placers.
Longtime football defensive coordinator.

Marcell Denson (Class of 1996)

Three year letterwinner in football. 1st team all-state
Four year letterwinner in basketball. 1996 Div. 2 Player of the Year and State Tournament MVP.
All-time leading scorer and rebounder in Orrville boys basketball history.
One of OHS all-time greatest all-around athletes.
Played in state football final in 1994 and won 2 state titles in basketball.

Tim Hiller (Class of 2005)

All-time leading passer in school football history with over 7,000 career yards
OCC basketball player of the year
Record setting QB at Western Michigan University, throwing for over 11,000 career yards.
Received prestigeous Wuerffel Award in 2009. Given to college athlete who best displays community service, athletic and academic achievement.

Renauld Ray (Class of 1996)

1995 1st Team All-Ohio & Beacon Journal Football Player of the Year
2-time All-Ohio in basketball. 3rd All-time in school history in points scored, 2nd in assists and 5th in rebounds. Feature member of back to back basketball championship teams.
All-Ohio in track
Played WR at Youngstown State and was member of 1997 Division I-AA National Championship team.

Chris Royer (Class of 1990)

4 year letterwinner in basketball. 1000 career point scorer, 1st team All-Ohio in 1990 and MVP of Wilbur Berkey Classic.
Played on scholarship at Ashland University where he also scored over 1,000 career points and was co-captain his junior and senior years.

Doug Steiner (Class of 1994)

Total of 11 letters at OHS (3 football, 4 wrestling, 3 baseball, 1 track).
Team captain at Grove City College where he rushed for 2,700+ yards and 40 career touchdowns.
Inducted into Grove City College Hall of Fame in 2011.

Bob Weltlich (Class of 1962)

Played basketball at OHS
Graduate of Ohio State
Total of 30 years coaching college basketball. Head coach for 21 seasons, assistant coach at Indiana and Army. Head coach at Mississippi, Texas, Florida International and South Alabama.
7-time conference coach of the year
Author of the book "Crooked Zebra."

Also to be honored on this night will be the 1995 and 1996 boys basketball state championship teams.

A very solid class if you ask me. Very accomplished while at OHS and beyond. Counting these 8, there are now 98 members of the OHSHOF, dating back to the first class inducted in 1991. A list of prior inductees can be found here.

Once again allow me to remind my readers as to how the process works. First and foremost, the OHSHOF Committee DOES NOT select nominees. Nominations must be submitted by the general public. Committee members cannot nominate anyone either. This is done to preserve the integrity of the organization.

All nominations are voted on and the top 20 vote getters move on to the final voting round. All committee members must then vote for 10 of the 20. Of that top 20, all who receive a majority vote of present committee members (if there are 15 committee members present, a majority would be 8 votes) are selected for induction, with no more than 10 members per class being selected. Inductees must accept the honor and be able to attend an induction ceremony.

There have been alumni who have turned down the honor...and there are deserving alums who have never been nominated. There are some in this years class that have been on the nomination list since 1992 and are just now getting in and some that were just nominated a few years ago.

Success at Orrville is important, but success beyond Orrville is considered as well. The mission of the committee reflects that:

"To select people who have distinguished themselves in one or more sports at Orrville High School, any college or university or other area of amateur and professional athletics or who have made meritorious efforts on behlaf of athletic programs in Orrville, Ohio."

Induction Ceremony
This year's induction will be held on Saturday September 14th at the high school. The induction portion of the evening will take place in the newly renovated auditorium. Very excited for that as it will be the first chance for many to see what I've heard is a beautiful space. Tickets are $25.00 per person and that includes a meal. More information will be forthcoming as we get closer to September.

OHSHOF Scholarships
The committee was again proud to present two $1,000 scholarships to graduating seniors at last week's Senior Assembly. This year's recipients were Kevin Weber and Tatiana Bullard. Funds raised from the induction dinner and the annual golf outing fund these scholarship efforts.

Golf Outing
The annual OHSHOF Golf Scramble is in two weeks (June 8th) at Riceland. Cost per player is $40 or $160 per 4-person team. This is our one major fundraiser of the year and helps us continue to provide two $1,000 scholarships to graduating OHS seniors. Click here for an information sheet as well as a hole sponsorship form. Holes can be sponsored by individuals, businesses, graduating classes, etc.

Spring Sports Update...and 'Prayers for Rem'

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Sun, 12 May 2013 18:50:00 +0000

Another school year is winding down and with it, the spring sports season. Tourney draws were held last weekend for baseball and softball, conference tourney for tennis was yesterday and this week for track.

Read below for a brief update on each....and for an update on longtime Orrville teacher/coach Rick Remenaric who is battling some pretty serious health issues.
Baseball
It's been quite an up-and-down season for baseball. They've done well against non-conference opponents, but have struggled in OCC play, currently sitting in 7th place with a 5-7 league record and 12-9 overall. They've dropped 3 of their last 4 conference games, were shut out in all 3, but have pounded non-league teams like Barberton, Willard & Northwestern in the last few weeks as well. Speaks to the strength of the OCC, but still is disappointing considering the amount of returning talent on this year's team.

They close out conference play this week against Wooster and then begin tourney play. They received the #4 seed in the Creston district and will face the winner of the St. Thomas Aquinas/Waynedale game. Full district bracket is here.

Softball
Also an up-and-down season for the softball team after an OCC championship last season. They're 12-9 on the year and 6-6 in OCC play. One milestone was this past week as the Riders beat Dover 2-1. It was coach Craig Johnson's 100th win as head coach. Really an accomplishment when you consider that a good year is winning 15 games. 100 wins means a few things...he's been consistent and produces winning teams. The girls seem to enjoy playing for him too.

The softball team opens tourney play at home on the 16th against Dalton. Full bracket here.

Tennis
The tennis team has a 7-7 dual meet record and 3-3 in the OCC (we don't play Wooster for some reason). They finished 4th yesterday at the OCC tournament, won by Lexington...as always.
Sectional tournament is this week at the College of Wooster.

Track
This has really been an excellent year for both girls and boys track teams. The boys are undefeated in duals/tri meets and the girls' only loss was to West Holmes. Both have won or finished 2nd in every invite up until this past weekends Jackson meet, which is used as more of a training meet for our athletes against D-1 level talent as a way to begin preparing for OCC's and distrcits/regionals.

This Friday, Red Rider Stadium will be the host for the OCC championships, which both boys and girls should be one of the favorites to win. The conference meet was originally scheduled to be held at Wooster, but was changed to Orrville due to the deteriorating condition of Wooster's track surface.
With the recent renovations to the stadium (new track/turf), it's become a really beautiful facility for track meets. And it's been used plenty, hosting a junior high meet, a freshman/sophomore meet as well as 2 varsity invites...plus this week's OCC meet.

There's some real impressive talent on both squads and I wouldn't be surprised to see either team bring home the OCC title and continue building momentum to the post-season. There's real potential for both teams to make noise on a regional level...and the more kids you can send to Columbus, the better chances are for a strong performance there. We've always had strong track talent, but this is one of those rare years that there's depth across most events that help with team scoring.

School Sports Site
If you've noticed the links I've been sharing have been coming from the school's website...can't be happier that results and news is starting to appear on a school site. As my time to dedicate to this site becomes harder and harder to come by, it's nice that there's a resource at the school that is keeping everyone updated. Whoever is doing it...keep up the good work. Here's the page in case you want to bookmark it.

Coach Rem
Many of you are aware, but some of my out-of-town readers may not be...longtime Orrville Phys. Ed. teacher & former OHS baseball coach Rick Remenaric was recently diagnosed with a form of brain cancer. He's in the middle of an intensive chemotherapy treatment and his family is keeping everyone updated via a website (http://www.HealingRem.com). This past week they posted an awesome picture...

... that's Coach Rem with the jersey he wore during his coaching days, signed by the current OHS baseball team. What a great gesture by Coach Marshall and the Rider baseball team. I'm sure it brought a smile to Rem's face. Keep him & his family in your prayers and check the website for updates as he keeps up the fight.

Good Luck Riders! - Final Four Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 02:58:00 +0000

Not much to say that will change much, but I'll try...I can only offer my sincere "thank you" on behalf of Rider Nation for the ride the girls team has taken us on so far and an even more sincere "good luck" to the Orrville girls basketball team as they prepare to take on the Anna Rockets tomorrow at Value City Arena in Columbus in the state Division 3 Final Four.

They're 2 wins away from finishing the "Unfinished Business" of bringing a state title back to Orrville..and if there's any group that has put in the work, that has played as one, and done it the right way, it's this team. There's 4 teams saying the very same thing right now, so nothing will be given to us, it will have to be earned, any state title should be that way.

I'm not good with inspirational speeches...but here's a few that I think do the trick. (email subscribers wont be able to see the video and will need to click on each link)

First...from the hockey movie "Miracle."

I love the quote at the beginning..."great moments are born of great opportunity." The Riders have earned the opportunity to play on Ohio's biggest stage, and will get an opportunity to make great moments on that stage.

Next up...one of my favorites...the "Perfect" speech from 'Friday Night Lights.'

I love this clip, because it's not about winning & losing, it's about being there for your teammate, and giving your all, and knowing that you did all you could. The line at the end always gets me..."put each other in your hearts forever, because forever is about to happen."

Some, and maybe every girl on this team, may never experience a moment like this ever again in their time as an athlete. It will be something that binds this group together forever. The next time we send a team to state, we'll remember this team. I don't pretend to know a lot about this team, but I do know chemistry when I see it, and this team gets along, they play for each other and this town...and that's something we can all get behind.

Last but not least...some 'Hoosiers' love.

Short and to the point....again..not about winning & losing, but putting your best effort forth. And the slow clap at the end...who doesn't love a slow clap?

That's all I got....so proud of this team & how well they have represented their school and town....just hope they can get a shot to play for the gold trophy on Saturday. I know this because I've heard it said...this team is not just happy to be there. They want the whole thing...and I think they can do it.

This has been such a special season, so many moments, so many records broken, it would be fitting to be back in Bob Knight Gymnasium one more time on Sunday for one last state title celebration.

Let's Go Riders!! Leave it all on the floor one more time (and then again on Saturday).

Beat the Rockets!!

Orrville Girls Win Regionals. FINAL FOUR BOUND!!

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 04:59:00 +0000

For the first time since 1993, the Orrville girls basketball team has captured a regional championship and will head to Columbus looking to win the program's first state championship.

In convincing fashion, the Riders steamrolled Beachwood 75-48 to punch their ticket to the Division 3 Final Four where they will face the Anna Rockets, who defeated Middletown Madison 61-42 today.

The Riders started hot today against the Bison, scoring the first 9 points of the game and never looked back in leaving little doubt as to who was the better team on this day.

Leading the way for Orrville, as she has all year, was senior Hannah Plybon. She had one of the greatest post-season efforts of any Orrville athlete, tallying a school record 42 points and adding another 15 rebounds. Her effort broke the record of 40 points set by Stacie Howard in the 1988-89 season. Many of Hannah's points came at the foul line as the Bison had no answer on defense against Hannah, resulting in lots of fouls that Hannah turned into points at the charity stripe.

The Bison closed the gap to 6 points in the 3rd quarter, but the Riders stretched the lead back to double digits, leading 50-37 after three quarters and ballooned to 60-42 with 4 minutes left. It was just a matter of running the clock to 0:00 and the Riders would be headed back to Columbus.

Plybon Points Update
Just really amazed at the effort Hannah put forth today..to play that big, in a regional final, just speaks to her experience and her ability to rise to the occasion. As has been custom in the last month or so, today also saw some more records fall. Aside from setting the single game scoring mark of 42, she also eclipsed the single season scoring record of Rider great Kevin Summers. Coming into the game, she had 657 points on the season, with Summers record of 673 within striking distance. Her 42 points now gives her 699 on the season, a new OHS record...and with her first point in Columbus this Thursday, she'll cross 700 points on the season. That's a solid career for any HS basketball player...and Hannah has done that in one season.

And she just doesn't score points either. She'll finish in the top 5 of career rebounds and in the top 2 for assists. She's the complete player...and why she should win Division 3's Player of the Year award hands down. Heck, at this point, let's throw her name in the conversation for Ohio's Ms. Basketball honor. That honor seems to go to a player at a D-1 school, but show me anyone in the state with the numbers she's put up this year. She'll get a third straight 1st team All-Ohio honor in the coming week, giving her 4 All-Ohio honors in her 4 years of high school.

Hannah now ranks 2nd all-time in Wayne/Holmes county history (boys or girls) with 2079 career points.

Davault nears 1,000
Sort of flying under the radar is the fact that senior Maggie Davault is nearing an impressive scoring mark of her own. She's 9 points shy of 1,000 for her career which would be a great accomplishment for her...and would give the team two 1,000 point scorers. The last time we had this, it was on the boys side as Jake Bolyard and Zach Wasson who both achieved the mark in the 2009-2010 season.

I said it the other day on twitter...if heart and hustle added to a players height, Maggie would be 9 feet tall. She's the soul of this team and a huge reason why they're 26-2 on the year and headed to Columbus.

Alberts get his Final 4
So glad to see Coach Alberts earn his first final 4 berth after 38 years in coaching. He's coached in 831 games in his career (545-286 record)...and this Thursday he'll coach on Ohio's biggest stage for the first time. Hopefully he gets to coach 2 more this season and it ends with a state title.

Year of the Girls
No disrespect at all to the boys, but this has been quite a run the girls sports teams have been on lately. Going back 12 months, we've had the softball program win the OCC, the girls track program win the OCC, the girls cross country team qualified for regionals, the girls volleyball team made the final 4, the girls swimming team sent 2 relay teams to districts and now the girls basketball team is off to the final 4. That's quite a run.

And looking back at the teams who made the volleyball final 4 in 2012 and who have made the basketball final 4 this year, only 1...out of 700+ high schools in Ohio...have made both final fours this year...and that's us.

It's the first time both the girls volleyball and girls basketball programs have made the final 4 in the same year. A great accomplishment for sure.

Final 4 Info
The Riders will play Anna this Thursday at 3pm at Value City arena on the campus of Ohio State University. In the other semifinal, Columbus Africentric will play Fort Frye at 1pm. There's plenty of state tournament history here as everyone but Fort Frye has made a Final 4 and Africentric has won 2 state titles and is making their 5th final four appearance. Anna won the state title in 2011 and is making their 3rd straight appearance in the final 4 and has 5 appearances total, also winning a state title in 1981. This is Orrville's 3rd final four appearance with 1 runner up finish.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Africentric waiting for the Orrville/Anna winner. I'd really like to see our girls matchup against them. They beat Archbold 60-42 today, and did so despite committing 25 turnovers. They do it with athleticism and pressure defense.

This is also the 28th time an Orrville team has made the final 4 or finished 4th or higher in the state (in sports like track & wrestling). Looks like I need to update this list. It was 26 Final Four's, but I found out that the OHS golf team finished 4th in the state in 1975...so adding that and today's win by the girls gives us 28.

As seems to be the norm, the Wayne/Holmes county area will again be well represented as both West Holmes (D-2) and Hiland (D-4) are in the final 4 also. How neat would that be if D-2, D-3 and D-4 all went to the locals?

Tickets
Per OHS AD Kent Smith, here is how tickets will be distributed:

Monday- 7:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m. Students and players families only out of the Orrville High School Athletic Office.

Monday- 6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. Open to the public for sale. They will be sold from the Orrville High School front lobby.

Tuesday & Wednesday- Tickets will be sold from the Orrville High School Athletic Office from 7:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m. Tickets will also be sold from Expert T’s in                                              downtown Orrville from 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.

·         There will be NO ticket sales on Thursday.
·         All presale tickets are $8.00. Tickets at the gate will be $10.00 or $12.00 depending on seat location.
·         All tickets are reserved seats.
·         The parking fee is included in the price of a ticket.
·         Maps and additional information sheets will be available when purchasing your tickets.

I'm told that 1 ticket is good for both games, so fans can show up early and catch the first game.

Don't forget your SWAG!
Courtesy of Expert T's, here's your Final 4 T-shirt design & order form. If you want a shirt in time for the game, get your order in on Monday. Click here to print out a form.

So...just two more wins and this team that has accomplished so much and broken so many records, can call themselves state champions. It certainly wont be easy, but I think this is a special group at a special time...so we've got a shot. This group really deserves it and it would only be fitting that this would be the team to bring home the gold trophy....they play hard, play as a team, and support each other. Their motto all season has been "Unfinished Business," and they're 2 wins from finishing. I know there can only be 1 champion...but I really hope it's us...and I think we've got just as good a shot as anyone else.

Another Great Day to be a Red Rider!!

Orrville Girls Capture District Title!

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 05:08:00 +0000


The team & coaching staff pose with their new hardware. Thanks to Mike Guster for the picture.

These are the best kinds of posts...victorious Red Riders, all smiles...and CHAMPIONS!!

Win over CCC
The Orrville girls basketball team captured the district title with a hard fought win over Canton Central Catholic, 58-51 at Triway High School. The win earned them a spot in the Cuyahoga Falls regional where they will face the winner of the Mineral Ridge district, the Hanoverton United Local Eagles.

The Riders led most of the way against Canton CC, including a 27-18 halftime lead. The Crusaders closed the gap and actually took a 33-32 lead in the 3rd quarter, but the Riders went on a 10-0 run to stretch the lead back to 9 in the 4th quarter. Right there told me something about the heart and desire of this team. They've been battle tested. Several key members of this team were also members of the Final 4 volleyball last fall, so pressure is nothing new to this group, and they play that way.

The Riders made their free throws down the stretch and forced some Crusader turnovers in the final minutes to hold on & capture their 2nd district crown in the past three years.

More Broken Records
Along with the win came plenty of history as it was Orrville coach Mark Alberts' 100th win as Rider coach. It was his 543rd win in his coaching career, spanning 33 seasons as a coach of boys programs (Danville, Fredericktown and of course Wooster) and 5 seasons here at Orrville.

The win was the Riders 24th of the season, which is also a new school record, breaking the old mark set in the 1983-84 season.

As a program, girls basketball now has 597 all-time wins (597-310 since 1966-67, 47 years). Three more wins to be one of roughly 25 programs in the state with 600+ wins according to the OHSAA.

Plybon tops 2,000
Last but not least, today will also be remembered as the day that Orrville senior Hannah Plybon crossed the 2,000 career point mark. With an "and-1" in the first quarter, she became the first Wayne Co. basketball player (boy or girl) to hit 2,000 career points..and only the 3rd all-time in the Wayne/Holmes county area.

She entered the game today with 1,991 points and tallied 28 on the day, giving her a career total of 2,019 career points...putting her in the top 50 all-time in Ohio girls history. With 23 more points, she'll pass Christa Wells of West Holmes (1987-91) for 2nd in area history. She wont catch West Holmes Lisa Cline (2,958 points and 3rd all-time in Ohio history) but that's pretty rare company to be in.

On the season Hannah has now scored 639 points which is just 34 points behind Kevin Summers school record 671 points (1990-91). 700 career points is not out of the question for Hannah....but it's all just numbers at this point. I'm sure she and the Red Riders would trade every individual statistic in exchange for 4 more wins and the program's first state championship.

Regional Matchup
Orrville and United Local will face off this coming Wednesday at 8:15pm, following the first semi-final between Mogadore (who defeated #1 seed Elyria Catholic) and Beachwood (who defeated #1 seed Gilmour Academy). All games will be played at Cuyahoga Falls High School.

United Local will be making their 2nd straight appearance in regionals...last season they lost to Smithville in the regional semifinal.

I fully expected Gilmour Academy to be one of the teams in this regional...their absence really opens things up. At this point, it's anyone's region to win. Going to depend on matchups and what team can put together 2 more quality outings to punch their ticket to Columbus. Here's the Sweet 16 bracket view. Keep an eye on that Lexington bracket and the team from Columbus Africentric. Likely they make another appearance in the final 4.

Both the Red Riders and Eagles will be sporting big win streaks coming into the game. The Eagles have won 17 in a row (24-2 overall), while the Red Riders have tied a school record with 13 straight wins (also 24-2 overall).

Great day to be a Red Rider!!! Proud of the crowd that turned out and was noisy from tip to when we cut the nets down. Make sure to buy your tickets at the school this week, as prices for the regional round jump to $8 for adults. Presale prices will be $6.

Winter Sports Update

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 04:17:00 +0000

A super busy weekend of Red Rider sports is in the books and post-season tournaments are in full swing. There's plenty to talk about, so let's get right to it.

Closing the Gym
It was great being part of one last night in the gym. It felt like old times with a packed house and a buzz in the air. It probably won't hit me until I see a game in the new gym. It was also great to see players and coaches from some of Orrville's great teams come back to the gym that they helped make so many great memories. Diane Shanklin and Erica Short represented the volleyball program, Dennis Hochstetler represented the wrestling program, Hannah Plybon and Stacie Howard represented the girls basketball program and Kevin Summers and Marcell Denson represented the boys basketball program. Here are some pictures courtesy of former basketball player & current track coach Andy Vernon:

Pre-game ceremony

Panorama before National Anthem

The final jump ball

Final points scored by Luke Smith

The final points in the gym were scored by freshman Luke Smith, the grandson of Orrville coaching legend Steve Smith. Amazing that in a gym Smitty made so famous, his grandson would be the one to close it down with a 3-pointer.

Girls Basketball
The girls breezed their way into the district rounds, notching easy wins over Rittman (72-19) and Loudonville (75-46). Counting their last regular season game against Clear Fork, the Lady Riders have won their last 3 games by an average of 42 points per game. Next up is Northwestern this Thursday. They defeated the Huskies by a 79-38 score just a few weeks ago but tough to beat a team twice in a season. Guessing they'll try to slow down the pace, but if we're hitting shots like we've been, it may not matter. That would set up a district final between either Canton Central Catholic or undefeated Smithville on Saturday at 2pm at Triway for a trip to the sweet 16.

Senior Hannah Plybon is sitting at 1,974 points in her career. She needs just 26 points to be just the 3rd in area history to score 2,000 career points. That would put in the top 50 all-time in Ohio girls history in points scored.

She also needs just 6 points to top 600 points on the season, something no girl at Orrville has ever done and only 3 boys at OHS have done (Kevin Summers twice, Ron Wachtel and Chris Royer).

The ladies team is now 22-2 on the season, needing 1 more win to tie the record for wins in a season. The district final could be the game they break that record, and if they win that game, it would be Coach Alberts' 100th win as Orrville girls coach in just his 5th season. He's never won LESS than 18 games in his 5 years at Orrville...that's pretty impressive.

Boys Basketball
The boys team ended the season with a 5-17 record but will again seek to string together 4 wins and capture a 4th straight district crown. They dispatched of Black River 53-32 in the sectional opener. The win was only the 4th win in the last 3 seasons that have been by 20 or more points. Three of those wins have come in tournament play (2011 & 2012 vs. Chippewa).

The win was the Riders 15th straight tournament win at Wooster High School dating back to 1995 when the school opened. The Riders have never lost on that floor in a tournament game, but that will be tested this Friday night at they take on #2 seed Oberlin.

The team has played hard all year and seem to be playing some pretty good ball right now. I'd say don't count them out, but it seems to motivate them when that happens...so continue to count them out I guess.

Wrestling
For the 7th straight year, a Red Rider will travel down I-71 to Columbus for the state wrestling tournament, and this year it's senior Brad Potter at the 152 lb. weight class. He finished 2nd to Norwayne's Kollin Moore at districts and will seek to become the school's 33rd state placer. OHS has now had 59 state qualifiers according to AD Kent Smith. Since 1999 (15 seasons), Orrville has sent at least 1 wrestler to state in 12 of those years.

Potter is 42-5 on the season and will take on Tyler Williamson of Cin. Madiera in the first round of the Division 3, 152 lb. bracket. The full list of brackets for Division 3 is here. Basically it takes 4 wins to place in the top 8...and 4 straight wins to finish as state champ.

What is interesting about this year is that a wrestler from Dalton will also be making the trip with the Orrville contingent. Dalton senior Drew Everett qualified for state at the 145 lb. weight class. Dalton's wrestling program was disbanded earlier this year due to low numbers so Drew became sort of an adopted son of the Orrville program, practicing and traveling with the Orrville team. He will still represent Dalton High School, but will have the support of Red Rider Nation behind him....even spawning these t-shirts from downtown Orrville business Expert T's.

Sports Hall of Fame Applications Due
Only a few days left to get your nomination in for the OHS Sports Hall of Fame. Induction will be this September. Here's a link to the application. Once filled out, they can be mailed to the high school to the attention of the Athletic Office.

Just get the nomination form in...doesn't have to be pages and pages.

Last but not least, be sure to check out Rod Dilyard's pictures for purchase. He does great work and puts in a lot of hours and miles providing this service. Some really great shots of the final game in the gym.

Go Riders!!!

Favorite Orrville Gym Memories

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 02:38:00 +0000

We're coming up on the final game ever to be played in the current Orrville High School gym. On Friday February 22nd against Lexington, the curtain will open and close one final time on a gym that's seen so many greats since the gym was first used in 1955, when Bobby Knight was a sophomore.

For the past several years, it's been Bob Knight Gymnasium...not sure if it had an official name prior to that (maybe just OHS Gymnasium), but what I am sure of is that it's been the scene of so many memorable moments, memorable teams and competitors and certainly some memorable coaches.

Before the start of the boys varsity game with Lexington on the 22nd, a brief tribute to the gym will be held...current and former coaches and players of the teams who played in the gym (volleyball, wrestling and boys & girls basketball) will be honored as representatives of the sport they played in the gym.

The point of this post is to gather some of your memories of our hallowed gym. Can be as a fan, parent, grandparent, player, coach, pep band member, student, referee or whatever relationship you had with the gym.

I'll start...and for me, it's one memory only that rises above the rest...the boys basketball game against Akron Firestone in February of 1992. Firestone came into the game with an 11-0 record, #1 ranked in Division 1 and boasting the trio of All-American Quentin Brooks, Andre Smith (son of Cleveland Cavs legend Bingo Smith) and Kenny Lane. They were as big and athletic of a team that I've ever seen....and in the typical fashion of a Steve Smith coached team, the Riders simply took the fight to them, defeating the Falcons 68-54.

Here's the newspaper clipping from that game...it didn't give much detail about the game...guessing the game was up against a newspaper deadline for the Courier so all they had room for was the basics.

It was one the most highly anticipated games in school history and tickets were sold out long before the day of the game. An overflow crowd watched via closed circuit TV in the auditorium. I was lucky enough to get a seat in the gym and if you have a copy of the game on tape...I'm the kid (a freshman at the time) standing up and blocking the view of the camera...so I have video evidence that I was in the building that night. Mr. Coppa wasn't too happy with me, but I wasn't going to sit on my hands all night.

I've never heard a "buzz" in the gym louder than that night, and never has a crowd of barely 1,000 been so loud. Everyone knew who was coming to "our" gym..a big D-1 school with an All-American..and we wanted to prove that we not only belonged but that we were better. No offense to the crowds of today...but crowds back then were loud...I know it's hard to believe, but even the adults in the reserved seats were standing and cheering...we didn't wait until the 4th quarter to make noise, the cheering started before the opening tip. We stood and cheered as Orrville players were introduced even. Hard to believe isn't it?

Firestone ended the regular season ranked #4 in Division 1 and advanced to the state final four while Orrville finished the year #2 in Division 3 in the AP poll, but won 8 straight tourney games to win the school's first team state championship.

I'm sure this game would be #1 on a lot people's list..but there have been plenty of other highlights as well. Those years in the early to mid 1990's were so amazing from a memories standpoint. From the 1991-92 season through the 1995-96 season Orrville boys basketball won 115 games (average of 23 wins per season), 3 state titles, an AP poll title in 1996 and had an amazing 29-2 record in the post-season in those 5 seasons.

It doesn't have to be games either...some of the "welcome home" celebrations from our 3 state championship teams were memorable as well. Our girls teams have clinched OCC titles on that court, and we've seen some great wrestlers compete in that gym...guys like Shane Hartzler and the late Jack Leeder. And even some sad memories as well, most notably Coach Smith's memorial service that was held in the gym in 2005...a gym where he helped make so many good memories was the gym where the town said goodbye.

Not looking for anything specific, just your memories of the gym....could be memories of games or practices, players, coaches or fans. Just leave a comment below...anonymously or leave your name.

Hopefully you can make it to the game on the 22nd...one last time to sit in those cramped bleachers and remember the glory years, the three state title teams, the 1980 and 2009 teams that went to the final four, the countless great teams that made us so proud season after season.

The gym where coaches taught and kids learned...how to win, how to lose..and most importantly, how to be Red Riders.

History Lesson: All 26 of Orrville's Final Four Appearances

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 03:17:00 +0000

I had the following list sent to me by Orrville AD Kent Smith. It's a detailed list of every one of our 26 final four appearances by our sports teams. I took some time to fill in details of each team's result at the final four (scores, who they beat or lost to, etc.) and added each team's coach as well.

The end result of this list is two-fold. One is to compile this information for the sake of history...and two...I'm hearing the plan is to recognize every one of the 26 appearances with a banner on the wall of the new gym when it opens for business. Each final four appearance would get it's own separate banner, resulting in a gym wall's worth of athletic achievement in our program since the baseball team notched the school's first final four in 1976.
First of all, what a great idea. We talk a lot about our proud athletic tradition, and rightfully so, but it's a great reminder to see that "on paper." We sometimes get called cocky and arrogant by other schools in the area when we discuss our athletic success, but I think we sometimes go out of our way to diminish our achievement rather than celebrate them. Why relegate these achievements to the archives and dusty trophy cases? They should be displayed for all to see....and doing this in a brand new gym is the perfect time to do so.

Other schools sure do it...loud and proud, and so should we. I've seen BIG banners in other gyms for conference championships and AP Poll Rankings...big patches on their letter jackets for playoff appearances...not wins...appearances. So why can't we be proud of our final fours and state titles just the same? I know, I know...academics over athletics. I agree 100%....but what's wrong with touting our achievements in both?

Below is the link to the list. It will open in a new window. Feel free to print and share.

Orrville High School Final Four Appearances - 1976 to Present

To review...that's 9 football final four appearances, 7 basketball final fours (5 boys and 2 girls), 3 volleyball final fours, 1 baseball final four and the 6 times our boys and girls track team finished in the top 4 at the state track meet. Show me another area school that has the depth and breadth of our achievements. Anyone? And that's not going back to the 40's and 50's either. That's 26 final fours just since 1976.

This list DOES NOT include any of our individual state champs...of which there are 24 more. So there are 50 combined individual state titles & team final fours. That's pretty impressive.

Secondly, I would have never guessed 26 as the number of total final four appearances. Football and boys basketball make up 14 of the 26, but I still probably wouldn't have guessed more than 20.

Lastly, some good (and bad) memories come back when looking over this list. Some great teams, coaches and wins...some heartbreaking losses too. Try to look at this list and NOT play the "woulda, shoulda, coulda" game....I say it's impossible.

A couple of interesting notes from this list.
1.) Two people at OHS have played on a final four team and coached a team to a final four. Sly Slaughter is one, he played on the 1992 state champion basketball team and coached the 2009 basketball team to state runner up finish. The other is Doug Davault....he played on the 1976 baseball team that finished state runner up and has also coached the 2010 football team to a final four.

2.) One of the most impressive runs on the list was the volleyball team's back to back final four runs in 2003 and 2004. The '03 team won it all while the '04 team bowed out in the semifinals. The combined record of those two teams was an unreal 55-3.

3.) Another great run was the football team's three straight final fours from 1983 to 1985. Two of those resulted in runner up finishes. Still would like to have a time machine and play the '84 and '85 games over again. Those three teams won a combined 32 games...which is tied for the most wins in a 3-year run.

3.) The 1999 state champion track team was simply dominant. That team sent athletes to state in 12 different events. I think there's only 16 events in a typical track meet.

4.) Diane Shanklin is the only coach to take teams in two different sports to the final four, doing it in 1981 with the girls track team and then with the volleyball team in 2003 and 2004.

Enjoy looking over the list...I'll put a link to this list in the "Records & Champions" tab at the top of the page for easy reference.

Orrville Girls Get #2 Seed in District Draw

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 03:30:00 +0000

It's almost tournament time for boys and girls basketball. Best time of the season is close upon us.

The girls district draw was this past Sunday and our Red Riders, sporting a nice 17-2 record, were rewarded with the #2 seed in the upcoming Wooster District tournament to be played at Triway High School.

Considering that Smithville, the undefeated and #1 ranked team in Division 3, shares the district with the Red Riders, a 2-seed is about the best we could have hoped for. The argument of who plays a tougher schedule (certainly Orrville) and who might actually be the better team (also Orrville in my opinion) doesn't really matter. If each team takes care of business, the two squads will have a chance to prove that on the court....but both will have to win 3 tourney games first before that discussion can even take place...and the distrcit will be a tough one, so no guarantees at all.

The Riders will open tourney play on Wednesday February 20th against Rittman at 6pm at Triway. If they win, they'll face Loudonville on Saturday February 23rd at 4pm.

The full district bracket is here and the region bracket is here. Both will be at the top of the page for easy access throughout tourney play.

What was interesting about the way the draw shook out was that the #3 (Canton CC) and #4 seeds (Chippewa) both chose the top half of the bracket...away from Orrville. That says volumes about who those teams don't want to play..and that they'd rather take their chances with the #1 team in Division 3 (Smithville).

Points Update
After Monday's 59-51 win over Canton CC, Orrville seniors Hannah Plybon and Maggie Davault are closing in on scoring milestones. Hannah came into the Canton CC game with 1,796 points and erupted for 35 points against the Crusaders, tying her career high and increasing her career total to 1,831. She's already the all-time leading scorer in Wayne Co. girls history, and is a little over 100 points away from eclipsing the boys record of 1,945 set by Dalton's Ryan Berg back in the early 1990's. To get to 2,000, she needs 169 more points. It would likely take the Riders making it to regionals (at least) for Hannah to get to 2,000. Very possible, but the focus in tourney play will be on winning games, not scoring points..and the deeper the Riders go, the tougher the teams they'll play.

Davault currently sits at 880 points after the Canton CC game, needing just 120 more to become just the 5th Red Rider girl to score 1,000 points. She's the proverbial straw that stirs the drink on this team...her hustle and heart simply can't be measured in a box score. Some college would be wise to take a look at Maggie...she'll never be the tallest girl on the court, but she's a gamer that plays much taller than she is and with a ton of heart.

Doubleheader with Northwestern
This Saturday will be a unique one at Orrville HS as Northwestern will bring their boys and girls team to Bob Knight Gym for a doubleheader. The day will start with the girls JV game, then the boys JV game. Both games will be free to watch. After the boys JV game is done, the gym will be cleared, and those wishing to watch the girls varsity followed by the boys varsity games will have to pay admission.

The action starts at 3pm. Only a few chances left to watch a game in the "old" gym. Don't miss out.

Nomination for 2013 Orrville Sports Hall of Fame Induction Due March 1st

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 03:04:00 +0000

It's that time again....the biennial induction to the Orrville High School Sports Hall of Fame will take place this year on September 14th at Orrville High School. The class of 2013 will be the 12th induction class since the first class was enshrined in 1991.

The induction will be held in the newly refurbished OHS auditorium. It may be the first chance for the general public to see the completely renovated space, and will surely add a special touch to the evening.

As always, the Sports Hall of Fame committee needs your help in recognizing the great in OHS athletic history. No person can be inducted without first being nominated and nominations are not made by the committee. That last part bears repeating....THE COMMITTEE DOES NOT MAKE NOMINATIONS.

Nominations typically come from a family member, friend, classmate, parent, child, grandchild or member of the Orrville community.

A nominee must be at least 25 years old. Nominees can be coaches that weren't graduates of OHS, but coached at OHS. Athletic success at OHS is an obvious requirement, but many inductees and nominees saw greater success at the college level, and that can sometimes strengthen a nominees chances for induction. In short, it's not just what someone did while at OHS...it's sometimes what they do AFTER the leave OHS that can set them apart.

Once nominations are received, all nominees accomplishments are discussed and the list is trimmed down to 20 finalists, and from that 20, a maximum of 10 nominees are selected, by majority vote of the committee, for induction.

Nominations for the 2013 induction class are due by March 1st, so now is the time to get someone you believe is worthy of induction on the list of nominees.

A nomination form is here...and if I can make a suggestion...just nominate the person...you don't need to have pages and pages of newspaper clippings and awards. Just the basic info on someone will do to get them nominated. Members of the HOF committee know Orrville greats from back in the 30's and 40's. If they were an accomplished athlete at Orrville, someone on the committee will know of them.

Here is the list of current inductees. I know there has been discussion in the past as to why an individual hasn't been inducted and usually it's two reasons....they were selected for induction but turned down the honor, or they have never been nominated. Sometimes though there are a lot of deserving nominees and some get in and some fall a vote or two short. It's a process and certainly not one taken lightly.

The OHS Sports Hall of Fame also provides two $1,000 scholarships to a male and female OHS senior at the Senior Assembly in May. Funds for that scholarship are raised from the annual golf outing held at Riceland Golf Course. This year's outing is set for Saturday June 8th...more info on that will be coming later.

Hannah Plybon Breaks All-Time Orrville Basketball Scoring Record

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 04:52:00 +0000

Another record fell tonight at the hands of Orrville senior Hannah Plybon. Already the girls all-time leading scorer, Hannah is now the all-time leading scorer in Orrville basketball history...boys or girls.

She tallied 29 points tonight in a 67-64 win over Mansfield Senior, and in doing so, passed Orrville great Marcell Denson's boys scoring record of 1,722 points.

She entered the game with 1,705 points, and her 29 tonight gives her 1,734 for her career.

Really incredible when you stop and think how great Denson was during our glory years in the mid 90's. He scored A LOT of points..and for Hannah to top that, speaks to how special of a talent she is.

Another record may fall this Saturday when the Riders host Triway...the Wayne Co. Girls scoring record. Currently held by Chippewa's Tonya Smoot, the record is 1,745 points. Hannah needs 12 points to own that record too. Likely that she gets it Saturday.

One other individual record is out there...and that's 2,000 career points. Hannah needs 266 points in her final games as a Red Rider to become the first Wayne County basketball player (boy or girl) to score 2,000 points, and just the 3rd in Wayne/Holmes county history.

I opined on twitter that she'd trade all of her points for a shot at a state title, and I was not surprised at her response: "I would, absolutely, without a doubt."

That's what I like to see in our student-athletes...a realization that individual awards are nice, but team goals come first. And only through the success of the team, does an individual get a chance to shine.

Congrats Hannah and congrats Lady Riders. Thirteen wins, two close losses to one of the best teams in the state...and a true shot at returning to Columbus for the first time since 1993. Tournament time should be a fun ride.

Winter Sports Update & Merry Christmas!

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 04:21:00 +0000

Wanted to update the happenings with the Red Rider winter sports teams, but first let me wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. Thanks so much for all your positive comments and for following me on Facebook on Twitter, which are great mediums to get out quick blasts of news. I do a lot more posting there, than here on the blog. Score updates and links are much easier to share via social media rather than here.

With only 54 posts this year, 2012 was the slowest year for me doing the blog....and it continues to be tough to find the time and energy to put into the site like I did back in 2008 & 2009 when I first started the site.

Not sure what 2013 will bring as far as this site will be concerned, but I'll do my best to keep it up and running. It may evolve into more of a reference site, with less focus on the week to week happenings. I still plan to continue the Football Playoffs series, and have a few other things of a historical nature that you'll enjoy reading.

On to the update....

Girls Basketball
The girls hoops squad is off to a fast 5-1 start, counting tonight's win over Mansfield Senior. Their only loss was to undefeated West Holmes. Senior Hannah Plybon became the school's all-time leading scorer last week against Lexington. Plybon's career points stand at 1,496 points through the West Holmes game, and for her record breaking effort, she was nominated for the JJHuddle/Ohio National Guard Player of the Week honor, and in a voting poll, won the award with over 80% of the vote. Likely the first of many awards she will receive this year, including a very impressive 4th consecutive All-Ohio honor.

The girls will travel to Danville this Saturday (2pm, varsity only), take on Madison at home next Thursday and then travel to North Canton to play Norton in the Lady Vikes Classic on Saturday the 29th.

Boys Basketball
The boys team is off to a tough start, dropping their first four games, two being OCC contests. They travel to Wooster this Friday and then face Northwest in the annual WQKT Smitty Classic over at the College of Wooster on Saturday. They will then face Clear Fork at home on Friday Dec. 28th, which is also the night for the Booster Club car raffle. Tickets are $10 ea. or 3 for $20 and make great stocking stuffers. On sale at Serpentini's, Crown Investments and out of the OHS Athletic office. Assuming they'll be sold the night of the drawing in the high school lobby.

(Click here for an info sheet for the Smitty and the Lady Vikes Classic, including game times and ticket prices)

Wrestling/Swimming
On Thursday Dec. 27th, the wrestling team will participate in the Manchester Invitational and on Saturday Dec. 29th the swim team will participate in the Cloverleaf Invite at Wooster High School.

Moment of the Year?
Not going to run down a top 10 like I did a few years ago...but a few events in Red Rider sports in 2012 stick out as special. In no particular order...the baseball team going to regionals, the softball team dominating and winning the OCC, the turf project at Red Rider Stadium, another district title for boys basketball, the volleyball team making the final 4, Hannah Plybon breaking the school scoring record. I think out of all those, the turf project and the volleyball final 4 run stick out as the two big stories of the year. All were great accomplishments though.

Have a blessed and Merry Christmas!!

Plybon Breaks Career Scoring Record

noreply@blogger.com (Red Rider Sports Blog (Tim Snyder)) — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 04:39:00 +0000

Big congrats to Red Rider senior Hannah Plybon as tonight she broke the all-time girls basketball scoring record at Lexington High School.

First...and most importantly, the Riders won the game 62-32 to improve to 4-0 on the season and 2-0 in the OCC.

Coming into the game Hannah's career mark stood at 1,458 points, needing just 12 to tie Stacie Howard's career mark of 1,470. Her 18 points in the first half captured the record, and her 25 points for the game put her at 1,483 points...and counting for the University of Akron commit.

Howard set the prior record in 1990, so the record stood for nearly 23 years...quite a record considering some of the excellent players that have come through the program since then.

Hannah needs just 17 points to become the first Red Rider to eclipse 1,500 career points and that could come as early as Saturday against undefeated West Holmes at Bob Knight Gymnasium.

The career Wayne Co. scoring mark is held by Chippewa alum Tonya Smoot with 1,745 points. As of right now, Hannah is 263 points away from beating that mark...and with at least 16 more regular season games, she'd need to average 16.5 points per game to hold the county scoring mark all to herself...and that's not counting any tournament games. If she averaged 25 points over her final 16 regular season games, plus 5 tournament games, she'd hit 2,000 for her career, and join West Holmes' Lisa Cline as the only area players to hit 2,000. That one will be tougher, but you never know.

Congrats Hannah, her coaches, teammates and family. Great night for them..and for Red Riders everywhere. I hope a moment is taken prior to the tip of the West Holmes game Saturday to give Hannah a moment of recognition in front of the home fans.

For the record...here's the top 10 Orrville girls basketball career scorers.

1. Hannah Plybon - 1,483 points (active)
2. Stacie Howard - 1,470 points
3. Rhonda Winters - 1,368 points
4. Dawn Woodruff - 1,105 points
5. Erica Short - 982 points
6. TaNeisha Winters - 965 points
7. Jenny Carter - 940 points
8. DeVonne Howard - 874 points
9. Kim Winters - 837 points
10. Libby Ladrach - 800 points

Should Orrville seek to leave the OCC & join the WCAL?
	Yes, get out of the OCC & apply for membership in the WCAL
	No, stay where we are. The OCC prepares us for tournaments.
	Leave the OCC, but stay away from the WCAL.

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