Summer 2025

OPENING NIGHT AFTERMATH -- A couple of streaks came to a halt during opening night of the 2025 season. One that didn't was Kirtland, Ohio's winning streak on the road, which reached 49 with its 30-7 decision over Central Clarion in a battle of 2024 state runnersup. But Tiger LaVerde's club did hand the Wildcats their first regular season loss since 2022. They had won 20 in a row. Meanwhile, Moniteau put a stop to an 18-game losing streak with a 17-0 decision over Coudersport. Also in District 9: Port Allegany's Aiden Bliss, who scored 57 touchdowns last seaason, added four more in a 70-33 rout of Bradford. Vinnie Feliciano of Meryhurst, who has designs on Ethen Knox's District 10 career rushing record, netted 80 yards on 23 carries Saturday against Sharon. The final was 35-6, Feliciano spoiling Sharon's bid for the shutout with an 8-yard TD with 3:42 left.

YE OLDE SLIDE RULE -- Invented in the 1600s; went out of style in the late 1970s with the advent of things like calculators, so Ron Mong just missed the cutoff. Whew.

HAPPY ANNI -- This is kind of not sports related, but only kind of. Saw in the paper this morning that Ron Mong and his wife Laurie are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. It was Ron Mong who kept basketball stats as a student at Cranberry back when I started at The Derrick. His big claim to fame was that he used a slide rule -- an actual slide rule (!!!) -- to do the stats. He'd sit at the scorers' table at the old high school, whip that slide rule out and compute! That totally killed me. He went on to spend his Life's Work as a CPA. Now why am I not surprised???

DIES -- Former Franklin assistant coach Frank Fultz died Aug. 3. He is the brother of 1976 Boston Marathon winner Jack Fultz. Frank Fultz was an honorable mention All-Section 2 back on Franklin's undefeated football team in 1959 and was an assistant coach on the Knights' back-to-back unbeatens in 1971-72. He was also an assistant coach in track back then.

MORE TO WATCH -- ETN's list of 45 linebackers to watch includes Oil City's Brayden Buzard and Blake Stevens and Franklin's Evan Steigerwald and Kaiden Kiselka. Only two of the 87 top offensive linemen were mentioned: Oil City's Noah Lucarelli and Franklin's Luke Marsteller. Oil City's Cole Findlay (32) and Noah Lucarelli (39) were both on the Top 50 players in District 10 list, annonced later on. I think we as done with lists for the time being.

BIG PLANS -- Mercyhurst Prep's Vinnie Feliciano has big plans, according to a story in

the Erie Times News. Feliciano is a junior running back -- and a speedster at that -- who ran for 2,448 yards last year. His goal this year is to become only the third player in District 10 history to rush for 3,000 yards in a season. The only others to do it? Two Oilers: Ethen Knox and Christian Cole . And before it's all over, Feliciano hopes to break Knox's D-10 rushing record of 7,870 yards. Feliciano has 2,589 yards heading into this season, including 141 as a freshman. He ran for 120 yards on 18 carries against Oil City in a Week 2 game last year. His stats included an 83-yard TD run midway through the fourth quarter after the Oilers were comfortably ahead, 29-7 or 6. Whatever. The two teams will meet again this season -- Aug. 30 at Mercyhurst.

TO WATCH LISTS, PART 4 -- List of 47 defensive linemen to watch included Oil City's Noah Lucarelli and Franklin's Caiden Mincer. List released on Aug. 7.

TOURING THE CAMPS -- Tom Reisenweber of the Erie paper is doing his annual tour of the football camps in District 10 and visited Erie and Mercyhurst Prep today (Aug. 6). Reports that Erie has athletes all over the player and Mercyhurst has a big line to go with the speedster junior RB Vinny Feliciano. Also visited General McLane, which graduated its record-breaking passing attack, but retained talented backup QB Matt Caro. (He made "The List.") Oilers will play at three and Knights will face Erie and McLane. In fact, Franklin is still looking for its first victory over Mc Lane.

TO WATCH LISTS, PART 3 -- Franklin's Caiden Mincer is one of 36 running backs to watch in District 10, per the Erie Times News. This was annouced Aug. 6.

TO WATCH LISTS, PARTS 1 and 2 -- Oil City's Cole Findlay is on two Erie Times News "to watch" lists: 20 quarterbacks and 52 defensive backs. Teammate Steven Heise is also on that DB list...Warren has a new coach, Chris Korbar who came over from Sheffield, and one thing the Dragons will try to do under him is snap a 22-game losing streak. Sheffield players are now part of Warren's team while Youngsville players have joined the Eisenhower program. Sheffield and Youngsville are no more, don't forget...

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT -- Oil City High grad Tiger LaVerde will bring his Kirtland (Ohio)

Tiger LaVerde in 1992 when he was a student at Allegheny.

Hornets "home" on Aug. 22 to play the Central Clarion Wildcats in a small school showdown. Kickoff is 7 p.m. Kirtland is a perennial small school power in Ohio and LaVerde's son, Jake (6-2, 200), is a seasoned quarterback for the Hornets. Central Clarion is a co-op involving Clarion, Clarion-Limestone and North Clarion. The Wildcats graduated their seasoned QB, Jase Ferguson. Both teams reached the state finals last fall.

Kirtland carried 82 players on its roster last year and has averaged 71 players since the 2012 season, with a high of 93 in 2019. In 2011, the Hornets had only 16 players, but still finished 12-1. LaVerde has been at Kirtland since 2006 and has a 244-21 record with seven Division VI state crowns and six runnerup finishes. He's 264-31 including his three seasons at Franklin.

MERLIN -- Ferguson (6-0, 190) was a magician for the Wildcats at quarterback, passing for 3,482 yards and 51 touchdowns and rushing for 1,488 yards and 25 more scores in 2024. That's a stunning 76 TDs accounted for but no college would commit to him as a quarterback. Except Clarion, sort of. The Golden Eagles said they would at least give Ferguson a chance to compete for the job, so he's going there.

To be fair, Grove City also wanted him as a quarterback, "but Clarion gave me such a good deal. It was tough to pass up, especially with (Clarion) being so close," Feguson told Mike Kilroy of exploreVenango back in January.

Robert Morris also wanted him -- as a defensive back -- and Slippery Rock showed interested as "an athlete." You know the drill.

So, Clarion here he comes.

PENN STATE HERE HE COMES -- Nolan Carey, the afforementioned state champion javelin tbrower from Corry, is headed to Penn State, according to a post July 16 on X.

TRAVELIN' MAN -- Zach Guth is only 10 years out of high school, but his career is

already checkered, so to speak. The 2015 Franklin grad, brother of current Vanderbilt hurler Luke Guth, Zach just finished his first season as pitching coach at Shepherd (Shepherdstown, West Virginia.) The Rams, who play out of the PSAC, finished 25-25 after a slow start. And not only did he tutor the young arms at Shepherd, he earned his degree from Arizona State. Guth made a lot of stops to get to Shepherd after posting a 14-1 record and helping Franklin to a District 10 title his junior year. (That season included a game in which he struck out 19 of 20 Titusville batters.) Guth went to Maryland, but things didn't work out at the Big Ten school, so he transferred to Hartford Community College. An 0.57 ERA got him taken by the Atlanta Braves in the 26th round of the 2018 draft. He played a season each in the Atlanta and Colorado Rockies systems before taking a job as an assistant director of scouting in Pennsylvania for Prep Baseball Report. Two years later, in 2020, he was off to Mercyhurst where he served as an assistant baseball coach -- among other tasks -- before heading to Shepherd.

AND WHATEVER HAPPENED TO... -- Franklin had another player drafted in the class

after Zach Guth. Mike YaSenka was taken by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 26th round of the 2018 draft. As with Guth -- and plenty of other hopefuls -- YaSenka didn't make it to the majors; in fact, he was released in March 2023. But, after playing for five teams, he did reach AA and appeared in 65 games (29 starts) while toiling 200.2 innings (214 strikeouts). Some -- most -- could only dream of making it that far.

FROM 150s to ALL-AMERICAN -- Just saw on X (Twitter) that Corry's Nolan Carey threw 220-2 to take second in the javelin in the Nike Outdoor Nationals. That made him an All-American. The winner was Bryson Jacobs of Drexel, Mo., who was one inch better at 220-3. Jacobs and Carey are the new Nos. 2-3 Carey in the national rankings behind a 225-2 by Colby Shamblin of from Colbert, Wash. Carey (5-9, 185) is also Corry's all--time leading passer in football with 5,156 yards. Carey's previous best in the jav was the 206-7 he threw on April 30 against Franklin. He was in the 190s five other times last spring. His best throw as a junior was 172-11. The 2025 state and two-time D-10 champ threw in the 150s as a sophomore.

JAVELIN LEGENDS -- Nolan Carey's exploits in the javelin bring to mind others from this

Oil City's Scott Moon held the state meet record for a while.

vicinity who have excelled in that event. Oil City has had two state champions in Scott Moon (1981 and 1982) and Ben Koyack (2010). Moon threw 230-8 in 1982 to break the state meet record set in 1968 by Ray Mushinski of Ambridge. His winning throw in 1981 was 215-6.

Franklin hasn't had a state champ, but both Bay Lawrence and Rich Hancox were quite good. Not sure what Lawrence's best throw was in high school, but he was up around 229 at Tabor College before becoming an All-Pro defensive back for Atlanta. And he was a state place-winner. Hancox broke the Franklin record in a 1966 meet with Titusville's Jim Kocan. Hancox first threw 179-7, but Kocan bettered it with a 189-51/2 for a Rocket record. Hancox broke his record the next year against Warren, tossing 188-7. He also took a third in the state meet that year, but I don't know the distance.

Kocan's record was broken by another two-time PIAA champ, John Clark, who was going eyeball-to-eyeball with Warren's Ed O'Neil in the 1970 state meet. O'Neil's first throw went 215-4, but he settled for second when Clark came back with a 222-4. Clark's winning throw the next year was 216-5. Both Clark and O'Neil played some football for Penn State. In the case of Clark, an outstanding punter, it was a little; in the case of O'Neil, it was a lot. He was one of the Nittany Lions' many All-American linebackers.

That brings us to Robert "Skip" Cummins of Grove City, an All-Ivy linebacker at Dartmouth, who held both the Dartmouth and Ivy League javelin records. He threw 248 as a senior in 1976 and 246-10 as a sophomore. Cummins was over 200 four times as a high school senior in 1972 before winning the state title with a record 223-3.

There no doubt have been others from District 10 -- and District 9 -- but these are the guys who first come to mind. In fact, one year back in the 1970s, Clarion had two guys in the 220s -- Kurt Lehnortt and Mike Hartle. What's more, Greg Wolfe from neighboring Clarion-Limestone -- I was told you could see his house from CHS -- was around 215. So think of the javelin relay they would have been.