Where: Infocision Field at Copley Stadium
When: Friday September 7, 2012
All Time Series: Orrville leads 24-14. Copley has won the last two matchups, 34-33 in double overtime in 2010 and 14-13 in overtime last year. Orrville is 3-2 at Copley since the rivalry renewed in 2001.
Last Meeting: Copley won 14-13 in overtime last season.
Last Week: Orrville lost to Triway 29-20, Copley beat Akron Firestone 34-27.
Coaches: Doug Davault is 51-23 in his 7th year as Orrville coach, Ron Viscounte is 27-26 in his 6th year for Copley.
Radio/TV: None that I know of.
Looking Back
Let's get this out of the way right now...last week's loss to Triway wasn't fun. Imagine it wasn't fun for the players or the coaches. Here's hoping the right things were corrected and this week's effort will be much improved.
Looking Ahead
Copley is off to a 2-0 start for the 4th straight year and will look to lean heavily on senior running back Aregeros Turner. He will run the ball primarily but is also a pass catching threat as well. He currently holds 4 scholarship offers from D-1 schools (Illinois, Tennessee, Washington and Toledo). The Orrville defense held him under 75 yards last season and the Akron Firestone defense did the same last week. The Rider defense will have to slow him down first and foremost, but also need to guard against Copley's other talented athletes, led by junior Will Thomas who returned a punt 81 yards for a touchdown last week. Copley was hit hard by graduation, most notably losing signal caller Lou Gigliotti. He was the glue that held that offense together. The Orrville defense will need to play their "A" game to slow the Indians down and give the Rider offense a chance to score some points.
Speaking of the offense, they need to play better, simple as that. The running game had over 250 yards rushing last week, led by Kyle Lichti (89 yards) and Martavius Dyson (88 yards), but the passing game was not good, plagued by bad snaps, bad throws and bad drops. I've heard good things about kids putting in extra work and working hard to be better in week 3 than they were in week 2.
Copley will be bigger than Triway so to expect the run game to put up 250 more yards rushing might be wishful thinking, which is all the more reason for the passing game to clicking on all cylinders. I have confidence that the kids will be motivated to rinse last week's taste from their mouths.
Any win at Copley is a big win...and it would be huge with a young team heading into OCC play.
Looking towards 2013
I bring up 2013 because this game with Copley will be the last with the Indians for the foreseeable future as they have chosen to drop us from their schedule starting in 2013. This has been a great series between these two schools, with the first game played all the way back in 1954.
This year's edition will be the 39th meeting, making it the 6th oldest rivalry in Orrville history behind Wooster (101 meetings and counting), West Holmes (87 and counting), Wadsworth (77), Mansfield Madison (42 and counting) & Triway (41 and counting).
The end of this rivalry will alter Orrville's schedule starting in 2013. Cleveland Lincoln West will replace Copley on the schedule but that game will be played in week 1, with traditional week 1 opponent Northwest moving to week 3. The Lincoln West game will be a home game every year, so beginning next year, Orrville will still have 5 home games but in 2014, we will have 6 home games. We haven't had more than 5 home games in a season since 1998 when we had 7.
In 2014, we'll have 8 games on turf, the 6 home games, plus away contests with Ashland and Wooster, who I hear may have turf as early as a year from now.
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