Fall '26 blog

FIRST ENTRY -- Warren's offensive coordinator, Andrew Morrison, is Paul Stamm's nephew. Info comes from longtime site reader Lou Corey of Warren who attended the Dragons' scrimmage with St. Marys on Saturday. Morrsion, who is also the Dragons' assistant head coach, is the son of Judy Stamm's sister. (Judy is Paul's wife.) Apparently Andrew grew up going to Paul's games in Oil City.

HERE WE GO AGAIN -- Tiger LaVerde's Kirtland Hornet are off to another great start -- a 51-6 victory over Taft on Saturday (Aug. 22) night.

AUG. 25 -- Former Meadville star Journey Brown has joined James Franklin's staff at Virginia Tech.

AUG. 30 -- Kiirtland (2-0) survived Poland Seminary, 36-34, over the weekend.

SEPT. 5 -- Welp, Kirtland lost. The Perry Pirates ended a 54-game road winning streak by coach Tiger LaVerde's crew on Friday night. The streak was the longest in Ohio since 2015.

SEPT. 12 -- The 63-3 win over Franklin looks nice on the resume, but Oil City has a tough schedule this season. Of the remaining teams, Warren doesn't appear to be that strong, but the rest is Murderers' Row...

Kirtland rebounded from its rare loss to trounce Rootstown, 50-7, for a 3-1 record.

SEPT. 14 -- Some -- I won't mention any names -- are complaining that six enrollment classes are too many in high school sports. Maybe so. But they're also using last week's many lopsided scores to prove their point -- when these same schools would be playing each other if there were four classes or even three. (Farrell-Reynolds, Wilmington-Mercer come to mind.)

They say Prep "recruits" but I can't find anything on the Internet to prove it, and I didn't expect to. I did find current school enrollment figures for Prep and the four Venango County schools. I was surpprised to see Oil City/Cranberry and Franklin/Rocky Grove are way bigger than Prep. But who is to say Prep's total enrollment is not 90% athletes?

Anyway, here they are:

	Total enrollment	Boys	Girls
Cathedral Prep	451	225	226
OC/Cranberry	co-op
Oil City	499	252	247
Cranberry	337	184	153
Total	836	436	400
Franklin/Grove	co-op
Franklin	486	248	239
Rocky Grove	206	107	99
Total	692	355	338
Other Erie:
Erie	2678	1359	1314
McDowell	1559	818	749
Also of interest:
Meadville	585	299	286
Titusville	495	241	254
Warren	666	348	318

SEPT. 19 -- Kiirtland won again on Friday night, blanking Conneaut (Ohio), 48-0, but the victory proved costly as QB Ben Loncar went down to a broken leg in the first quarter. A freshman, Griffin Gabrfiel will take his place ...Gavin Zillman had another big game for Harbor Creek, rushing for 265 yards on 34 carries and scoring five TDs. He now has 954 yards on 100 carries and 14 touchdowns this season...Vinnie Feliciano of Mercyhurst Prep is up to 5,637 career yards rushing and needs 116 yards to break the Erie County record held by Zack Helsley, also of Mercyhurst, with 5,752 yards...Feliciano has 993 yards this year.

SEPT. 20 -- In all my years I have never said this before, but I feel like saying it now. And that is, I would never judge how powerful one team is over the other by looking at the final score.

You have to take into account more than that: (1) yardage and (2) spacing of the scoring.

I saw where the Erie paper described McLane’s 23-0  win over Oil City as “dominant.” Well, not exactly. Not when the last nine points came in the last 5:34, including a fourth down TD pass with 3:18 to play. It was 7-0 at halftime. The Lancers scored again midway through the third.

Now if you were watching the game, you knew that second TD was probably it for the Oilers. They weren't moving the ball at all, finishing with 121 yards total offense, including fewer than 50 on the ground – their bread and butter. Plus, there were too many penalties along with an uncharacteristic four turnovers – two fumbles and two interceptions.

McLane quarterback Josh Caro threw for 160 yards and two TDs, both coming on fourth down. But the Lancers weren't moving the ball up and down the field with ease, either, as evidenced by their 242 yards total offense. That’s pretty so-so.

The sentence where the Erie paper described McLane’s win over the Oilers as dominant also included Prep’s 79-6 win over Franklin in which the Ramblers had 31 points in the first quarter and more than 50 by halftime.

Now that’s what I call dominant and certainly not in the same league as McLane-Oil City.

General McLane and Cathedral Prep have played 12 times since 2004. The Lancers are 1-11 against the Ramblers, the lone won, 35-28, coming in 2005, the year before tbhe won the state championship. They lost to Prep, 21-7, the year they won it all. McLane was within a touchdown, 39-32, in 2024 when the Ramblers finished a medicore (for them) 7-4. The Lancers were 8-3.

Six of the games were lopsided and two more were decisive defeats.

Here's a chart:

Year	Score	McLane's record
2025	L, 28-14	8-2
2024	L, 39-32	8-3
2023	DNP	6-5
2022	DNP	9-2
2021	DNP	6-4
2020	DNP	4-2
2019	DNP	3-7
2018	DNP	7-3
2017	L, 69-7	4-6
2016	L, 62-0	5-5
2015	L, 34-14	7-4
2014	L, 56-21	5-6
2013	L, 62-7	9-4
2012	L, 47-0	9-3
2011	DNP	10-4
2010	DNP	10-2
2009	DNP	11-1
2008	DNP	9-3
2007	L, 31-14	8-4
2006	L, 21-7	13-2
2005	W, 35-28	12-1
2004	L, 38-8	8-3

SEPT. 23 -- My'Saun MIlls, who had some crowd-pleasing moments as a WR/KR last year, is listed on the Aliquippa roster, wearing No. 3, but hasn't done anything yet. I was surprised to learn he was also at Hopewell, before coming to Oil City...Anna Rodgers registered her 500th career dig for the Rocky Grove volleyball team...

SEPT. 26 -- Kirtland's latest victim is Chagrin Falls. 45-3...Mercyhurst Prep's Vinnie Feliciano broke the Erie County career rushing record. He now has 5,879. Old record 5,752 held by Zach Helsley, also of Mercyhurst, and now the women's football coach at Mercyhurst, the college. Feliciano ran for 230 yards against Wilmington Friday, but it was in vain since the Greyhounds pulled out a 36-29 victory on a fourth down 40-yard pass after the Lakers had gone ahead with 44 seconds left...

SEPT. 27 -- The District 10 golf tournament is still going on as planned Monday through Wednesday despite the big fire that hit the Country Club of Meadville club house on Friday. Cause is under investigation, but one person who was there said it smelled like popcorn. Another replied, "It doesn't smell like popcorn to me." Food will not be available for the tournament, so BYOB?

SEPT. 29 -- They all count. Those trick plays that go for minus 21 yards? They all count in the stats. Just sayin'

OCT. 3 -- McDowell-Prep score (37-13) didn't surprise me. What did is Central Clarion-Karns City final (43-14). Not the score so much, but the lopsidedness of it all. Three soph QBs playing out of Region 5 this season -- Franklin's Harrison Doty, Oil City's Bryce Marchinke and Warren's Parker Kiser. Keep an eye out for their progress. And Meadville has a freshman, HarrisonRichards, at that position. Doty, who really likes to fling the ball around, didn't wow me last year as a freshman -- well, he was only a ninth-grader -- but he's putting together some numbers and showing the ability to get the job done. Last Rocky Grove student to play QB for Knights? Porter Rembold? Any others? Meadville-Franklin score (20-15) first normal one between the two schools since 2008 (14-7). Everything else at least in high 40s...