Hoobler & Miller to play in Big33, Davault to coach

Chase Hoobler & Sam Miller's time as Orrville Red Riders are in their final days.  A senior season that saw the duo play leading roles in the Div. 4 regional runner-up football team and the Div. 3 state runner-up basketball team will be memories they carry with them for a long time.

And yes, the addage of "once a Rider, always a Rider," is true, but not really.  This fall, Chase will be an Indiana Hoosier and Sam will be a Golden Flash at Kent St., and after that, who knows...the only certain thing will be change from here on out.

About all that's left in their senior year is the scholarship assembly, the graduation ceremony and a gathering of family and friends to celebrate the end of one era, and the beginning of another.

Once all the graduation dust settles, Chase & Sam will suit up one last time as a representative of Orrville High School, and this time, as representatives of the state of Ohio also.

The All-Ohio duo along with Orrville head coach Doug Davault have been selected to participate in the Big33 Ohio vs. Pennsylvania All-Star football game.  The event will be held in Hershey, PA on June 19th, with kickoff at Hershey Park Stadium slated for 7:00pm.

Here's the roster for the Ohio squad, Sam was just added last week (thanks to commenters and facebookers who alerted me to it) so his name has yet to be added to the roster, but he was an alternate who got the call to suit up for Ohio.  According to the roster, Chase will be wearing jersey #47, not his normal #46.  That will be worn by Jewone Snow of Canton McKinley.  Wonder how that got decided?

Sam will have a more difficult choice for jersey number. Numbers 1 through 11 are claimed, so Sam's usual #5 is out of the question (will be worn by Tyson Gulley), as is any number close to it.

Regardless, the Ohio roster is full of familiar names, led by two-time Mr. Football Erick Howard of North Canton Hoover.  Other notables include Tyson Gulley (Akron Garfield), Latawn Anderson (Cle. Glenville) and Christian Bryant, also of Glenville.

Davault will serve as an assistant under head coach Tom Pavlansky (Cortland Lakeview).

Chase & Sam are, by my records and knowledge (which isn't much mind you), the third and fourth Red Riders to participate in the Big33 game.  The first two being Dan Stultz & Renauld Ray in 1996.  The first Ohio-Pa. matchup was in 1993, and prior to that it was Pennsylvania vs. Maryland (1985-1992) and East PA vs. West PA (1977-84).

Here's a year-by-year breakdown of the Big33 game.

As far as the uniforms...meh.  Nothing special.  Notice how Pennsylvania's uniforms seem to be a mesh of Penn St. white and Pitt gold....while Ohio's have strong Buckeye flavors.  I guess it makes sense.

So round up the family, spend the day at Hershey Park, eat some chocolate and watch Chase, Sam and Coach Davault represent Orrville.

Good luck to all three, enjoy the experience.

Lastly, wouldn't this be a nice little promotion for a certain bank whose name is new to Orrville and also happens to be the title sponsor of the Big33 game?  Discount tickets, and maybe even a little vacation package (hotel, Hershey Park tickets, game tickets, etc.) prize drawing for new customers?  That would earn them some big brownie points and show community involvement.

It's a good idea isn't it?

It'll never happen.