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You have found the internet home of the Buckeye High School Varsity Football team of Medina, Ohio, who completed their 66th Season of play at the conclusion of 2018. They had the best campaign in school history. They went 9-1 in the regular season, made their 6th straight appearance in the OHSAA Playoffs, however this time they were ranked 3rd in Division III Region 9 and hosted the Alliance Aviators at Steingass Field and got their first Playoff win 28-25 advancing to Week 12. The following week they played the 2nd ranked Kenston Bombers at Bearcat Field in Bedford and were eliminated by a 40-21 score. They broke through a barrier and history was made raising the bar for the 2019 squad and the teams that come after them.
As of the end of 2017 they have scored 3,267 points against the PAC12 opponents, while giving up 1,343 in 98 Games owning a 81-17 Conference record. This was the final season of play for the Bucks in the Patriot Athletic Conference. The PAC12 is being dissolved at the end of the school year. The Bucks, along with PAC member Fairview will move to the Great Lakes Conference which was formed in 2015 and begin play in the 2019 Season. That conference now contains 7 teams and will expand to 9. The other members are Bay, Elyria Catholic, Holy Name, Normandy, Parma, Rocky River and Valley Forge.
The 2018 season was the 2nd under Head Coach Greg Dennison who came to the Bucks prior to the 2017 season. The Bucks also claimed their 6th straight PAC12 Stars Division Crown, which is their 10th overall in the 14 seasons of PAC play.
Coach Dennison is the 16th Head Coach in Bucks History he has a 20-3 record in his 2 seasons here. He was an assistant coach during 2016 for the Brunswick Blue Devils. Prior to that he led the Wadsworth Grizzles for 21 Seasons from 1995-2015. His accomplishments there have him in the company of some of the greatest coaches in Medina County history. He compiled a 148-77-0 recorded and led the Grizzles to Suburban League Titles in 1996, 2007 and 2009 along with three regional final appearances in 1999, 2003 and 2011. His record at the end of this season gives him a 168-80 record which is good for 2nd All Time in Medina County behind Black River’s Al Young who retired at the end of 2018.
Great Lakes Conference: 2019
1 Title
(2019)
Patriot Athletic Conference: 2005-2018
10 Stars Division Titles in 14 Seasons
(2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 & 2018)
Ohio High School Athletic Association – Division III
State Qualifier 11 Seasons
(2002, 2003, 2005, 2009, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 & 2019)
Week 12 - Michael Knoll Article
Safety Town
11/9/2018 By ALBERT GRINDLE The Gazette
Buckeye senior Michael Knoll will end up with plenty of options for play college basketball or football, mainly because he checks in at 6-foot-6, 205 pounds. He had a strong summer on the hardwood playing alongside top-flight talent for the All-Ohio Red and All-Ohio Cincinnati AAU programs, but figured he could get looks on the gridiron, too, with a good season. Knoll has had help in the form of older sister Kelsey’s boyfriend, Randy Greenwood, who continues to send out highlight videos to anyone who will watch. The pitch is Knoll is athletic enough to play tight end — he’s a backup quarterback/starting free safety for the Bucks — if a Division I/II school wants a player with upside.
It turned out the theory was correct because University of Akron tight ends/H-backs coach Kory Gribbin offered Knoll a preferred walk-on roster spot, but Knoll also is a potential D-II basketball prospect and will take his time making a decision.
“It definitely caught me by surprise,” he said. In the meantime, Knoll is focused on keeping alive a successful football season as the Bucks (10-1) head into a Division III, Region 9 semifinal tonight against Kenston (10-1) at Bedford’s Bearcat Stadium. Knoll has lost, in his estimation, only five regular-season football games since fifth grade.
His sixth-grade Buckeye Jets won the Brunswick Youth Football championship, and the varsity is 20-2 in two seasons under coach Greg Dennison. His senior season hasn’t turned out like Knoll expected, as he was in a quarterback competition with Jacob Doerge in the preseason until Doerge emerged in Week 2 and has since led the Bucks on a 10-game winning streak.
Knoll was understandably disappointed but focused on another up-for-grabs position, free safety, took a stranglehold on it and hasn’t looked back. The way Knoll handled the situation thrilled Dennison, whose defense has allowed an average of only 11.7 points over the last six games with Knoll patrolling deep.
“It’s really a credit to him and his attitude because he started the year rotating in at quarterback and we moved him over to defense,” Dennison said. “That was a position where we really weren’t sure who we were going to place there. From Day 1, he’s stepped up and had a great year for us.” Knoll busted out with a 10-tackle, two-interception performance in a regular-season-defining 38-35 victory over eventual D-VI playoff qualifier Columbia.
He stood out again last week in a 28-25 decision against Alliance with seven tackles and a near-interception on the Aviators’ final snap. For the season, Knoll has 45 tackles (3 for loss), six interceptions for 57 yards and three pass breakups. Knoll and Wadsworth free safety Jake Herbert, who has a school-record nine picks, are the only county players with more than four interceptions. Knoll is a surprisingly big hitter given his slender frame — “I just love hitting people,” he said — but smiled with confidence when asked about the interceptions.
All of the summer hours put into becoming a better quarterback paid off in a way he didn’t necessarily expect. “My experience being a quarterback, I can read the quarterback’s eyes and look where he’s going,” he said. Knoll and fellow DBs Anthony Watkins, Clay Gunkelman and Logan Steppenbacker face their biggest challenge tonight.
The Bombers’ Jon Tomcufcik has 2,245 yards passing as Kenston, whose scheme is modeled after D-I superpower Mentor, is without question the best offense the Bucks have faced. Buckeye is on Cloud 9 after finally winning a playoff game for the first time in school history, and it believes that confidence should not be underestimated. “We’ve just got to act like it’s another game,” Knoll said. “We can’t get too cocky. We can’t act like it’s over because we finally made history. We’ve just got to keep going.”
Contact Albert Grindle at (330) 721-4043 or agrindle@medina-gazette.com.
The Bucks (10-2) ended their season after the school’s first playoff victory a week earlier, and said to a man they savored the extra time they got to spend playing high school football. “I loved it,” senior Anthony Watkins said. “This class has done something no one here has ever done before.” “It’s been the most fun week ever,” senior lineman Austin DiBiasio added. “Building up to this has just been crazy. I’ve been thinking non-stop about this game all week.”
The game started with a bang, as Kenston (11-1) took just three plays and 37 seconds to score a touchdown. But Buckeye methodically drove 66 yards in 10 plays, with quarterback Jacob Doerge scoring from 3 yards to tie the game. Both teams were forced to punt on their next series and as the quarter ended, the teams were tied 7-7. “Definitely, we were right there,” Watkins said. “It was just some small mistakes that let them get ahead.”
Kenston, which was driving with the ball when the first quarter ended, punched it in on a 5-yard pass from Jon Tomcufcik to Tyler Mintz — the latter had a touchdown receiving, a touchdown rushing and two interceptions — to go up 14-7. On the second play of the next series, receiver Jay Middleton (4 catches, 125 yards) broke a pair of tackles after catching a fly pass down the right sideline and raced in for a 53-yard score.
By the time the teams went to the locker rooms, the Bombers led 26-7. Kenston scored on its first two possessions of the second half to go up 40-7 and start a running clock before the Bucks got a pair of rushing touchdowns from senior Dom Monaco (15 carries, 63 yards) to close out the scoring. Kenston, which converted on eight straight third downs at one point, got 132 yards and a TD on 25 carries from running back Jack Porter, who added two catches for 30 yards and a TD, while Tomcufcik finished 11-for-15 for 185 yards and three TDs while directing a four-receiver offense.
“Shout out to them,” Buckeye junior running back Armondo Nigh (12 carries, 90 yards) said of the Bombers. “They were very aggressive and playing downhill. We kept fighting back every time.” Although the rain and snow that fell in the second half didn’t lead to the mud bowl Buckeye played in while beating Alliance a week earlier, the Bucks’ magic run came to an end. “They were a good team, but we played hard and kept fighting,” DiBiasio said. “You cherish every week with them,” coach Greg Dennison said of his players. “We didn’t have a lot of seniors, but we knew we had quality over quantity. Every one of them contributed to this.” Nigh, a junior, said it would be different playing without the seniors next year. “Lots of love for this senior class. I’m going to miss them,” he said. “I’ve played with these guys for a while. They played their hearts out.”
The debate about the best Buckeye football team of all time will never be solved to everyone’s satisfaction. Some people like the 2015 team, which went 10-1, lost to West Geauga in double overtime in the first round of the playoffs and featured stars like Gazette MVP Trevor Thome and quarterback Nathan Polidori.
Others point to the 2005 squad, which also went 10-1 behind stars like Nick Tavernelli, Adam Read and Dustin Supan.
Still others favor the 2002 and 2003 squads spearheaded by twins Darren and Dan Cereshko, noting that while the Bucks went 9-2 in their junior year and 8-3 in their senior season, Buckeye played in the extremely tough Mohican Area Conference at the time.
Old-timers go back to the 10-1 1979 team led by future University of Akron running back Ron Brant, while real old-timers go all the way back to 1960, when Division I college recruits Tom Masters (Eastern Illinois) and Jim Thomas (Vanderbilt) led the Bucks to an 8-0-1 record in an era when there were no playoffs.
It’s a subject that’s already been debated and will continue to be debated whenever a bunch of sports-minded Buckeye alumni get together, but one thing is now certain: The 2018 Bucks will forever be in the history books. Whether they get company next year or the year after or 10 years from now, nothing will ever change the fact that guys like Jacob Doerge, Dom Monaco, Ryan Smith, Anthony Watkins and many, many others helped these Bucks accomplish it first. After losing nine times in nine previous postseason appearances — a number of those losses weren’t close — Buckeye finally got in the win column Friday night by beating Alliance 28-25 in a Division III, Region 9 thriller at Edwin Steingass Field.
“Nathan Polidori ran out on the field and gave me the biggest hug,” junior quarterback Doerge said. “It’s not a competition. We’re all a family. This win is for every single player and every single alum that ever walked through Buckeye.”
And, oh, what a win it was. Up 14-0, 21-6 and still leading 21-19 late in the fourth quarter as they pounded the ball downfield on a rainy, muddy night, the third-seeded Bucks (10-1) were on the verge of finally putting away the stubborn and resilient No. 6 Aviators (7-4).
Then senior running back/linebacker Monaco, so great all night on both sides of the ball, fumbled at the Alliance 12-yard line, with the Aviators recovering and running the ball back 8 yards to the 20. On the first play from scrimmage, Alliance quarterback Brandon Alexander hit Gavin Geier for an 80-yard touchdown and, just like that, the Bucks were down 25-21 with 1:53 to play.
“The first thing that came to mind is, ‘It figures. That’s the story of Buckeye,’” Doerge said. “But then right after that thought, I went right back to offense mode.” Added Monaco: “I’ve always been hard on myself. That fumble got me down, but I knew we had enough time to score. I never really doubted we would win.” Neither did anyone else, it seems.
On the Bucks’ first play from scrimmage after falling behind, junior quarterback Doerge hit do-everything senior Watkins for a 64-yard catch-and-run TD with 1:34 to go. Four Alliance incompletions later, one of the biggest celebrations ever seen in York Township was on. “It’s unbelievable,” said Doerge, whose only two other pass attempts on the night fell incomplete. “I haven’t really processed it yet. It will set in when I go home and I won’t be able to sleep.” Added senior two-way lineman and Ohio State preferred walk-on Smith: “It was the most important game for everybody. It feels like I’m living a dream right now, and that’s how it should be.”
Whether winning a postseason game for the first time in school history qualified them as the program’s best team ever wasn’t all that important to the Bucks. They were just elated to advance to a meeting with second-seeded Kenston (10-1) next week. “Maybe if we aren’t the best team, we are the team with the most heart,” Doerge said. “We were able to fight and do something incredible.”
Make no mistake, these Bucks were fully aware of the program’s 0-9 postseason record. Of course, the 2013 team knew Buckeye was 0-4 in the playoffs going into its postseason game, just as the 2014 team knew that record was 0-5, the 2015 team knew it was 0-6, the 2016 team knew it was 0-7 and the 2017 team knew it was 0-8. Somehow, some incredible way, the 2018 Bucks did what no other team was able to do and ended the winless playoff streak at nine.
“We were very aware of the streak,” said Monaco, who dressed as a freshman and played varsity as a sophomore and junior. “I happened to be a part of three of them. We just have so much heart. We knew as seniors this was our last chance to get a win.”
This time, the Bucks got that win. Finally. No matter how many years go by and no matter how many debates there are about the best team in school history, nothing will ever change the fact the 2018 team was the first to win a playoff game. “That’s all that was in our heads tonight,” Watkins said. “We made Buckeye history.”
