Orrville Uniforms: The Long Awaited Sequel

Editor's Note: This is the second in a three part series on the Orrville football uniform. Part 1 dealt with the uniform set as it currently exists and can be viewed here. Part 2 will deal with potential changes and tweaks. Part 3 will look at the current helmet and present potential changes in design and colors.

Let us continue with our look at the Red Rider football uniform. In part 1, I did my best to "digitize" the Red Rider football uniform as it currently stands (Home & Away). This next post will deal with potential changes in both style and color.

And we're off.....oh, here's your quote...

"If you look good, you feel good,
if you feel good, you play good"
if you play good, they pay good. - redacted, does not apply
--Deion Sanders

Our current uniforms are simple (a good thing), leaving a lot of room for change, but just because the template is sort of blank, doesn't mean we should cram as much change into it as possible. I do, however, think there is room to make the uniforms more unique and modern without sacrificing our classic look.

Here are the changes I'd currently support.

Change #1. Add "RIDERS" across the chest of the home jersey. You dont see many teams with lettering across the chest anymore. This would give the jersey somewhat of a throwback feel, like Chris Speilman on the Wheaties box.

Here's a another example from Poland Seminary High School. Not sure I'd go for lettering that big, but not much smaller either. PS - I hate that extra white panel on the sides. And while we're at it, I still hate the fact that we lost to Poland in the 1999 playoffs, we had them beat in the 1st half and gave it away.

Change #2. Condense the divided triple stripe on the jersey to 2 stripes. Hear me out, I know doing this means that it won't jive with the triple pant stripe, but in keeping a small gap between the 2 stripes, you're still using all 3 school colors, and with the way the colors are used currently, only 1 of our current 4 combinations (red jersey, red pants) will the pant stripes and jersey stripes will match. You'll see what I mean below.

I think this would give the jerseys more of a streamlined look. Especially if we start moving to a more "fitted" uniform, a divided triple stripe on the sleeve might look a little cluttered.

Change #3. Replace 2 stripe design on black pants with 3 stripe pattern. As I mentioned in part one, this is my major beef with the black pants. Standardizing them with the red pants will make them look so much better.

Change #4. Add a Block "O" to hip area of all pants. Very simple change, adds another layer of style without being cluttered. Similar to the Ohio St. Block O.

Change #5. Add shoulder or "TV" numbers to all jerseys.

Change #6. Add white pants to the uniform set. I went back and forth on this...but ultimately, I think this would be a nice addition, it could be worn with any of our jerseys and I just think a white/white combo is terribly sharp. That's Kettering Alter (current D4 champ) and I think they have one of the sharpest uniforms in the entire state. Also, notice how their sleeve stripe and pants stripe are the exact same? I like that, very consistent.

If we're looking for a design to base a uniform redesign on, Alter would be a great place to start. An all white uniform with our classic helmet would look awesome in my opinion.

Ok...so adding in all those elements to our uniforms, here's what you get.

Red Jersey Set (click each picture for a much larger view)

White Jersey Set


If we add white pants, we would jump to six potential uniform combinations.

________________________________________________________________
Here are potential changes that I'm not 100% behind, but will present for the sake of discussion.

Potential Change #1. Add a black jersey to the uniform set. I'm not 100% against this, but adding a black jersey would open up the door to an all black look, and in my opinion, that's not a good look, especially when we are the RED Riders.

We've seen black jersey sets creep into the basketball program, boys and girls, and I just have a hard time accepting it. Red is in our school nickname, and neither varsity basketball team has red jerseys anymore (black jerseys were replaced with red in the boys program in 2009). I don't want this to happen to the football team.

Here's what a black uniform set would look like, I went with white lettering just to break up the look of the jersey. Red numbers and letters looks a little too dark.

See what I mean, something just seems off. Looks too much like Manchester or even Rittman. Just not a fan for a team named the Red Riders. I know adding a black jersey is all the rage in sports uniforms, but I think we should resist black jerseys, I'll accept the pants, although not a fan, but no black jersey.

If we added a black jersey we would jump up to 9 different uniform combinations, putting us in Massillon Washington High School Tiger territory.

Potential Change #2. Add "ORRVILLE" across the chest of the white jerseys. Just not sure about this one. Here's what it would look like, in both red and black lettering, alongside our current white jersey.

If this happened, I'd be in favor of the black lettering instead of the red. I kind of like how it gives the uniform some depth.

Poll
You'll find a new poll at the top, with the new ideas I've presented. Vote on your favorite. There's an "other" selection if you have an idea of your own that I have not presented. If you vote "other" please expand on your idea in the comments section. Because of the number of suggested ideas, I've allowed the poll to accept multiple answers, so if you like several ideas, you can vote for all of them.

The first poll on "Favorite Current Rider Uniform" was pretty evenly spilt.

Comments Welcome
So......what do you think? Part 1 of the uniform series generated the busiest day ever on this site, so I know I'm dealing with a topic people are at least interested in, and if people are interested in something, they normally have an opinion, one way or another.

Like what you see? Hate it? Have your own ideas? Discuss it in the comments section.

You can register for an account with Blogger, or just post anonymously. The comment section can really take on a life of it's own, but not without your input. This site will never reach it's full potential without input from fellow Red Rider fans. My readers are as much a part of this site as I am, I'm merely the facilitator, the bartender, if you will.

In my never ending quest to make the site user friendly, I've added a comment button to try and simplify the comment process, click the button and it will take your to the comment area where you can craft an original thought or respond to another users comment.

Lastly, Coach Davault, anyone in the athletic department or Booster Club, if you're even remotely looking into doing something with the football uniforms.....I'd be honored to offer my assistance. You know where to find me.

Swimming & Orrville: Who-da-thunkit??

If you had told me I'd spend time posting about the successes of OHS swimming on this site, I'd have called you more than crazy. Shows what I know. Let's dive in (no pun intended).

Orrville High School will be well represented at this weekend's State Swimming tournament in Canton.

The top 4 finishers in each event qualify for state automatically, and then "at-large" spots are determined by taking results from all 4 districts. I like this way of seeding, it allows swimmers a chance to get to state, even if competing in a loaded district.

Here's how the "RIDER FOUR" fared at the District meet in Cleveland. Funny that they'll travel a shorter distance to states (Canton) than they traveled for districts (Cleveland).

State qualifiers in BOLD

RELAYS
200 yd Medley Relay - 5th @ District, 10th fastest among all districts.
200 yd Freestyle Relay - 6th @ District, 10th Fastest among all districts.

Victor Monheim - JR
200 yd Individual Medley - 9th @ District, DNQ for State.
100 yd Backstroke - 9th @ District, DNQ for State.

Mason Monheim - FR
50 yd Freestyle - 6th @ District, 14th fastest among all districts.
100 yd Freestyle - 7th @ District, 18th Fastest among all districts.
100 yd Butterfly - 7th @ District, DNQ for State.

Kyle Likens - JR
50 yd Freestyle - 9th @ District, 19th fastest among all districts.

Vincent Monheim - JR
100 Butterfly - 4th @ District, 20th fastest among all Districts.

It's awesome that each of the 4 student athletes will get to compete in at least 2 events each. And how amazing is it that Mason (a frosh) will be competing in 4 events at the state meet? I know very little about swimming (SIDENOTE: I was a svelte little swimmer at the Rex Drive Swim & Tennis club back in the day...deceptively fast in the pool, so I know a little), but I'd wager that not too many freshmen will compete in more than 1 or 2 events event as a freshman, let alone 4 events.

Good luck to the Rider tankers, and congrats on your accomplishments so far.

All 4 students are underclassmen, so they will no doubt make another run next year, but first things first.

Rider Basketball: Record Breakdown

With the loss to Madison, the Riders once again will end OCC play without any piece of a league title. The loss tonight does bring up another interesting discussion dealing with our overall success in the OCC.

We've been successful in the conference for sure, winning at least 10 league games in each of the past 4 seasons, needing only a win versus Lexington next weekend to secure a 5th straight season of at least 10 league wins.

But in looking a little closer, our success, in my opinion, is due in large part to beating up on the bottom half of the league, and winning the occasional game against the league's top teams.

Here's what I mean......

2004/05
5-1 in non-conf games.
7-1 against West Holmes, Wooster, CF and Ashland.
4-2 against Senior, Lexington & Madison.

2005/06
3-3 in non-conf games.
7-1 against WH, Woo, CF and Ashland.
3-3 against Senior, Lex and Madison.

2006/07
6-0 in non-conf games.
8-0 against WH, Woo, CF and Ashland.
2-4 against Senior, Lex and Madison.

2007/08
4-2 in non-conf games.
6-2 against WH, Woo, CF and Ashland.
4-2 against Senior, Lex and Madison.

2008/09
2 & 2 in non-conf games.
8 & 0 against WH, Woo, CF and Ashland.
1 & 4 against Senior, Lex and Madison.

Totals over the past 5 seasons...
We're 20-8 (71.4%) in non-conference games.
We're 36-4 (90%) against West Holmes, Wooster, Clear Fork and Ashland (one loss to each team)
We're 14-15 (48.2%) against Lexington, Madison and Mansfield Senior.


What's my point??


Only this....it's almost impossible for us to win less than 12 games per season. We're going to pick on the bottom half of the league for 6 or 7 wins, throw in the olbigatory opening game win versus a lower level Akron City team, and the cupcake win at the Smitty Classic and you're looking at 9 or 10 wins. If you split the other 4 non-conference games, that's 12 wins.....at the very worst, and this isn't even counting any wins versus Senior, Lexington or Madison. If you split with 2 of those 3 teams, you're sitting at 14-6 for the season.


I've heard the criticism of "how can you be unhappy, we're winning 14 games a season." I can't argue that, but when those wins are coming against the weakest teams on our schedule, and we're constantly losing the big games, it gets very tiresome.


My larger point...talent will only get us so far. It's good enough against the bad conference teams, and the bad non-conf. opponents, but when it comes to the top tier OCC teams and tournament teams, we need more than talent, and it shows in our performance.


In games versus the top 3 OCC teams and our last 5 years of tournament basketball, we're a dead even 20 wins and 20 losses....a .500 team. And in games against the eventual OCC champ in each specific season, we're only 3-9.


Some questions to ponder.....


Are we not to be considered a top tier OCC team? I guess not, we've never won or shared a title and our losing record against the top tier teams, backs up the statement. I think goes hand in hand with us not being a serious player in the Canton district either.


Has the overall talent in our program dipped? I think so, but honestly, it couldn't get any higher than the success the program enjoyed in the mid 90's, so while a drop off was almost inevitable, it's still tough to see our teams not reach their potential. I certainly think we had and still have plenty of talent though. In my opinion, it has more to do with the utilization of our talent and overall motivation than it does not having enough talent.


Is the OCC too "big" of a league for Orrville? I don't think so. The travel stinks, but the competition is very even and I think every other school in the OCC would say that for a school our size, we do more than hold our own across all sports.

Just some thoughts...feel free to agree or disagree.

A Helmet Logo? Surely you Jest.

Not to divert your attention away from the Uniform post, but my attention has been brought to an issue that simply must be discussed.

In the comment section of the "Uniforms: Part 1" post, local sage DrVanNostren posted this little nugget...

"I think that during the 1988 campaign they had the "rider jumping through the O" logo."

Come again? My immediate rection was that of denial, my mind is less sharp everyday, but all I've ever known (or thought I've known) was that in my lifetime the Red Riders have never had a helmet logo. I thought maybe it was something we wore in a scrimmage, or thought about wearing but never did. I was very surprised to find out that we actually wore it for not just a game, but for an entire season.

Through careful follow up with the good doctor, he revealed that a player on the '88 team tipped him off to this fact. That was good enough for me, but I needed visual proof, so off to the Orrville Public Library and the wonderfully awesome microfilm archive.

This is what I found (look between the skulls on the top row). Tough to see, and looks more like a smudge or glare, but trust me, it's there. Upon further inspection, it becomes more clear what it is.

Here's about the best picture I could find, pretty clear in my mind. It's this. The Rider jumping through a Block 'O.' Yes indeed. Unbelievable.

I wouldn't be against a logo on the helmet, but this one just looks hokey. To me, it doesn't seem like a whole lot of planning went into this. First off, it's terribly small. If you're putting something on the helmet, make it so people can see it. Players and coaches on the sidelines probably had a hard time seeing it, nevermind the fans. It's tough to see even in close up pictures.

Lastly, as I mentioned in the comments section, when you have pride stickers and a logo, it can become a little cluttered. Look again at this picture. Not only is it cluttered, but the pride stickers become much more visible than the actual logo, and to me, that's backwards.

From what I could tell, it only appeared on the right side of the helmet and was a 1 year experiment. Here's a picture from 1989...back to normal. Whew!

Enjoy, don't forget about the uniform poll, interesting voting so far.

Now, let us never speak of this again.

Orrville Red Rider Football Uniforms: Part 1

Editor's Note: This is the first in a three part series on the Orrville football uniform. Part 1 will explore the uniform set as it currently exists. Part 2 will deal with potential changes and tweaks. Part 3 will look at the current helmet and present potential changes in design and colors.

"The uniform makes for brotherhood, since when universally adopted it covers up all differences of class and country."
-Sir Robert Baden-Powell

If you've read this site for any amount of time, you have read my penchant for uniform details. Well, this is me totally falling off the wagon. In the following post, I will break down the Orrville football uniform, as it currently exists, and in future posts I will discuss potential changes in both the uniform set as well as with our helmet.

Just so we're clear, merely a suggestion does not mean an endorsement. I may present something that I myself hate, but I know that my taste isn't your taste, so I will present all sides of the argument and allow you to see it in living color before passing judgement.

Visual aids will be used for the reading impaired, or the lazy...or both.

If minute, borderline-obsessive details regarding football uniforms makes you a little uncomfortable, it's best just to skip this post altogether.

Allow me to channel my inner Paul Lukas.

Let's do this.

Orrville's uniforms have always been very simplistic and very classic, like high school football uniforms should be. Subtle changes in materials and striping, our uniforms have been largely unchanged for the past 25 years or so. Among the significant changes since the early 80's....

Adding black pants during the 1992 season.

Using the small skull stickers exclusively beginning in the late 80's, ending the use of the large die-cut skulls.

That's it. No large scale changes or complete redo's....and I couldn't be happier. I think most would agree that the uniforms are very sharp and simple, albeit a little boring. But still very classic and laced with tradition.

Do I think the uniforms are fine as they are? Absolutely. Do I think some small changes could be made to make them even better? You Betcha. Do I love answering my own questions? You know it.

Let's look first at the uniforms as they currently exist. All pictures can be increased in size by simply clicking on them.

HELMET
Classic gloss black helmet, Red stripe down the middle, and two divided white stripes on each side (the total width of the white stripes is equal to the width of the red stripe).

Red face mask and skull pride stickers. It seems in the Doug Davault era that the stickers have been applied more uniformly. Gone are the days where players make a number or some other design out of their stickers (beautiful evidence here). Big thumbs up on that move. Stickers seem to show up on the left side of the helmet first (see here), a nod to Ohio St. obviously.

We'll discuss the helmet in much more detail in a later post....now let's get to the uniforms.

The Home Uniform

RED JERSEY
Red jersey has a divided triple stripe sleeve design (black/white/black) with white "varsity" block numerals outlined in black.

RED PANTS
The red pants have the familiar "black-white-black" triple stripe down the leg, matching the red jersey stripe pattern.

BLACK PANTS
As mentioned above, the black pants were added in 1992, and from what I was told, we got beat pretty bad at home in the black pants debut, prompting Coach Mac to make the black pants "road only." Recently, we've returned to wearing the black pants at home.

I want to think the black pants were added out of necessity more than anything else. One pair of red pants had to be tough to keep clean throughout the season, although I can't think of any other county team with more than 1 pair of pants.

My problem with the black pants is this....they only have a two stripe design (red/white). This bothers me to no end. Not sure why this was done this way, when our jerseys and our red pants utilize the "triple stripe" design. Why not follow the standard that's already been established?

I have noticed that every game we play against Wooster, we wear the red pants. I'm pretty sure we've never worn black pants for a game against Wooster, at least under Coach Davault. I think this is another nod to tradition and I support it 100%.

SOCKS/SHOES
Probably the toughest area of the uniform to standardize...but it seems that the black socks and black shoes combination is becoming the norm. If you want to get real crazy and layer black socks over white (or white socks with black tape) Ted Ginn style, all the better. The more "spats" the better should be the rule going forward.

The Road Uniform

WHITE JERSEY
This is the only real difference (obviously) between home and road uniforms. The white jersey has the same triple sleeve stripe design (black/red/black) with red "varsity block" numerals outlined in black.

Red Pants or black pants can (and have) been worn with the road white jersey.

The End Result

Throw all of this together and you come up with four current uniform combinations (with pictures....finally!!)

Home Uniforms


Road Uniforms



Note: The above image templates were found on the South Carolina Football message board "Cockytalk." If you would like to use any of the Red Rider templates, all I ask is that your credit my site as your source.

All Things Basketball: The Low Scoring Edition

This will be quick......

1. Riders win a low scoring affair over Clear Fork in the metropolis of Bellville, 42-33. They improved to 11-5 and 9-3 in the OCC. They have now won 7 of their last 8.
2. The Riders begin a brutal final 4 game stretch with plenty left on the line. First up is Madison, who currently leads Orrville and Mansfield Sr. by 1 game with 2 league games left. A Rider win Friday will pull them into a tie for the OCC lead. The Riders will then welcome in the limping Huskies of Northwestern on Saturday. They have lost their last 2 games (Smithville & St. Thomas Aquinas) and will look to secure a big non-conference win at the hands of the Riders. The Riders finish the season with their final OCC game against Lexington and then a big non-conference home game against state ranked Canton Timken.
3. In district news, Minerva clinched the NBC crown on Friday with a win over Northwest. They currently sit at 16-1 and will be waiting for the Riders in the first round of the district tournament. Other games of note.....St Vincent-St Mary dismantled Mansfield Sr to the tune of 72-48. I don't think there's much doubt as to who the best team in the district is currently.....Senior (even though not as good as some of their past teams) is considered the most athletic team in the OCC, and to see them get beat by 20+ says a lot about what kind of level the Irish are playing on right now.
4. Zach Wasson scored 6 against Clear Fork, raising his season total to 229 (14.3 avg). His streak of 10 straight games in double figures was snapped.

Comments.....

The Riders have a share of the OCC title in their sights, we'll see how they respond. From where I sit, they could win all of their final 4 games, but they could just as easily lose all 4. I still don't know what to make of this team....the win over Senior was great, but other than that, we've picked on the bottom half of the OCC these last few weeks. If we come out and beat Madison and Northwestern on back to back nights, I'll have a little more confidence heading into tournaments.

I think the pairing of us with Minerva is a little bit of a "no lose" situation for the Riders.....playing the #2 seed means that you have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Another first round loss, and we can always fall back on the "they were the #2 seed" reasoning....no matter the score or circumstance surrounding a loss.

Here's a quote from Northwest coach Mike Lower regarding the Lions, this should make any Orrville fan a little uneasy...

“They don’t beat themselves. They only made eight turnovers. They run when they should run, go slow when they should go slow, and don’t make turnovers. They’re very well coached. They play very well as a team.”

Sounds like they do what is necessary to win, nothing fancy and not trying to win in any particular fashion. In my opinion, that flys in the face of our style of play, and approach to games.

I'll wait to see how we finish to talk about how confident/not confident I am heading over to the Fieldhouse. But given our recent history over there, and our history against teams with equal (or more) talent, I'll need to see a lot to help my confidence.

Here's the entire Canton bracket again (from the state website, I HATE the new format of brackets they're using, looks like an outside service.).

Building Hype 101: Tease the Reader

Coming soon to the greatest Red Rider Sports blog on the net (the only one too!)...

The Topic: Orrville Football Uniforms

The Content:
Current Combinations (of course)
Critiques (Sure!)
Possible Changes (Definately)
Artist Renderings (Visual Aids are helpful)
Black Jerseys (No Way!!! Ok...Maybe)

Trust me, it will be worth the wait.

I won't promise a date, being Valentine's Day Weekend, I might be otherwise occupied (TMI!!!)....but I'll try to get it up by the first of the week.

In Other News. I've been tracking visits to the site through Google since the middle of December, and I'm over 1000 page views in 2 months, with 70% of those being unique and 30% being returning visitors.

I appreciate everyone who has taken the time to explore the site, and am proud of the organic growth of the site. Dont worry, I have no idea who any of you are, all it tells me is where the hits are coming from, geographically.

I must say my curiousity has been piqued by the site visitors from out of the area. I'm assuming you are alums who just landed somewhere other than Wayne Co. Hope this site keeps you a little closer to home. Drop me a line if you'd like, I'd love to hear from you.

All Things Basketball: Numbers Edition

Some numbers from this weekend......2 - 7 - 100 - 512 - 10. Confused? More than normal? I'm here to help. TOGETHER we can!!

2. The number of big wins over the weekend for the Runnin' Riders. The Riders beat rival Wooster on Friday night, then shocked Mansfield Senior in overtime on a last second 3 pointer by Teven Mitchell. The Riders sit at 10-5 and 8-3 in the OCC. The Riders have a real shot at their first OCC title. If they win out (in the OCC), they will do no worse than share the title.

7. The number of consecutive wins over Wooster on the basketball court, 11 straight wins if we add in football. It never gets old beating Wooster, but seriously....it ceases being a rivalry when it becomes lopsided like this.

100. The number of career wins achieved by Orrville coach Donald Short. Society, sports especially, seems to get too caught up in even numbers. 300 wins, 500 home Runs, 3000 hits....etc. But 100 wins is a nice accomplishment. He's only the 2nd Orrville basketball coach to reach 100 wins. Over 6+ seasons, his resume includes 93 regular season wins and 7 post season wins, and his overall winning percentage is 67.6%. I'm sure coach would take an OCC title or a regional appearance this season over any of his previous 100 wins. For full disclosure, 456 wins (Steve Smith) is the school record.

512. The current career points total of Orrville sophomore Zach Wasson. Zach reached the 500 plateau (more even numbers) in Saturday's big win over Mansfield Senior. For the season, he has 223 points (14.8 ppg) and is also averaging 7 rebounds per game. I don't have solid numbers, but I can't think of too many Rider cagers that have reached 500 points before their junior season. In Zach's case, he may well reach 600 before the end of the season.

10. The number of consecutive games that Zach Wasson has scored in double figures. He had a similar streak of 10 games last season and has scored in double figures in 27 of his 37 career games.

Canton District & Wooster District Brackets

Well, here's how things shook out at today's tournament draw. Our Riders are a 6 seed and will face #2 seed Minerva (currently 14-1) in the opening round.

Here's the full bracket courtesy of the fabulous ohiobasketball.net.

I'll post a full tournament preview as we get closer to the end of the season.

My early thoughts...I don't mind the draw (other than the 6 seed...not a lot of respect there) and think Minerva is very beatable, but our recent track record isn't good for a whole lot of confidence. Maybe a big win over a top seed is what this program needs to build a little tournament confidence.

DIII Wooster District.
Here's the draw for the Division III Wooster District, I can't see anyone beating Smithville in a must-win situation, but that's why the games are played. Good Luck to Tyler Bates and the Smithies.

All Things Basketball

Riders on a modest win streak, OCC still in reach, and we're 1 week away from the Canton Tourney draw. Let's break it all down....TOGETHER!!

Startin' to come together, Pepper.
Are the Riders really turning a corner, or is this another illusion that will end in a disappointing loss in Canton? They've won 3 straight (albeit against 3 teams they SHOULD beat), but 2 of them came down to the wire, including another OT game at Ashland. They're certainly not putting teams away, and again gave up a double digit lead in the Ashland win.

The Riders currently sit at 8-5 (6-3 in the OCC), 1 game behind Mansfield Senior and Madison for the lead in the OCC. The Riders play both teams in the next 3 weeks and can gain at least a tie for the league title if they can finish strong.

Riders have a tough road weekend upcoming, playing at Senior on Friday and at Wooster on Saturday. Two wins would be great for momentum as well as for the district seeding meeting that will take place this Sunday Feb. 8th. The Riders also need to pile up the wins now, as their last 4 games (all home) include Madison, Lexington, Timken (state ranked) and Northwestern (state ranked).

Canton District.
As mentioned above, the seeding meeting is Sunday Feb. 8th, so teams have 1 more weekend to make an impression.

Here's how the Canton district sits after games through January 31st.

Teams listed by order of winning percentage.

Minerva Lions (14-0)
Akron Buchtel Griffins (12-2)
Akron St Vincent-St Mary Fighting Irish (11-3)
Alliance Aviators (10-3)
Louisville Leopards (9-5)
Orrville Red Riders (8-5)
Akron Springfield Spartans (7-6)
Marlington Dukes (8-7)
Norton Panthers (5-8)
Akron Hoban Knights (4-7)
Canton South Wildcats (5-9)
Fairless Falcons (3-10)
Northwest Indians (2-12)
Akron Coventry Comets (1-11)


Here's a detailed breakdown of each team and their results so far.

And here's my top 5...

5. Alliance
4. Orrville
3. Minerva
2. St V.
1. Buchtel

Not sure how the seeding will shake out, but history tells us that the NBC teams usually band together. It wouldn't surprise me to see Minerva as the #1 seed, but it's clear to me that Buchtel and St. V are 1a and 1b, respectively. The NBC bias may affect Orrville negatively, as in my opinion, they're the 4th best team in the district, but will probably end up getting leapfrogged by Louisville or Alliance.

In the end, it doesn't really matter, if you plan to advance, you're going to have to beat whoever is placed in front of you.

Wasson Watch. Zach Wasson, #33, Sophomore.

The Wasson Watch
Season Points to Date: 195

Career Points to Date: 484

Season PPG: 15.0 ppg

Career PPG: 13.82 ppg

Points from 500: 16 (Revision: Zach could get his 500th as early as this Friday at Mansfield Senior, but even though he only needs 16, getting it against the T-Y Tygers will not be easy.

Bonus Points: Zach has scored 20+ in a game 5 times, in those 5 games, Orrville only lost 1. Moral of the story...when Wasson scored 20 or more, we typically do well.

Bolyard Bulletin.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention what a fabulous season Jake Bolyard is having. He leads the OCC in points per game and steals, and is in the top 10 in rebounding and assists. Lexington's Courtney Avery may win the scoring title when the season is over, but Jake has clearly put up better all-around numbers and deserves serious consideration for OCC player of the year. Jake has one of the purest shots of anyone in the area and has really taken a big leap forward in his progression as a basketball player.