Eagles reach tough ending | News, Sports, Jobs

Staff photos / Greg Macafee
Warren JFK tailback Antonio Smith tries to stiff arm a New Bremen defender during the Eagles’ loss in the Division VII state championship game Saturday at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton.

CANTON — In December of 2020, Warren John F. Kennedy set a goal for itself after losing in the state championship game.

In the words of JFK head coach Dom Prologo, instead of just getting to state championship games, the Eagles wanted to win state championships. They were close last year, bouncing out in the state semifinal.

But, after two years, Kennedy was able to get back to the title game this year, yet ended up coming up short of its ultimate goal, falling 38-6 to New Bremen on Saturday afternoon in the Division VII state championship game at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton.

“We picked a bad night to miss tackles, and we picked a bad night to turn the ball over like we did,” Prologo said. “Obviously New Bremen is a heck of a football team. Their quarterback had a great game today. I take my hat off to those guys, but I’m not sure we played our best game.”

Coming in, Prologo knew New Bremen quarterback David Homan was one of the best athletes the Eagles had faced all year and he showed why Saturday afternoon.

Homan did most of his damage on the ground, racking up 234 rushing yards and four touchdowns on 25 carries. He had touchdown runs of 67, 41, 27 and 7 yards, with his two longest coming in the first half. Homan added 77 yards through the air to bring his total over 300 for the game.

“He plays with a lot of grit and he kind of wills his team to victories,” Prologo said. “He’s tough to get on the ground. You actually have to get to his legs to do that. Maybe we should have talked a little bit more about the way to get the kid on the ground because we’ve done a great job of that throughout these guys’ careers and we didn’t get it done. All the way around, we just didn’t get the job done.”

Cardinals head coach Chris Schmidt said Homan’s two longest touchdown runs came on the same play as Homan was able to find space thanks to blocking from New Bremen’s physical offensive line.

“Both sides (of the line) are pretty good,” Homan said. “But we have what we call quick guards and quick tackles and strong guards and strong tackles, so they go left, right, both sides. It doesn’t really matter which side we run to because our lineman do a great job of just staying on blocks and opening holes for me and Hunter (Schaefer) to get some breathing room and make open field cuts.”

One of the bright spots offensively for Kennedy was the play of running back Antonio Smith, who finished with 97 rushing yards on 15 carries to lead the Eagles.

JFK’s lone touchdown of the game came on its opening drive of the second half. The Eagles marched 65 yards in 10 plays and capped it off with a 27-yard strike from Caleb Hadley to Aidan Rossi.

But, whenever the Eagles tried to build some momentum offensively, mistakes came back to haunt them. JFK turned the ball over three times and the Cardinals were able to score 14 points off those turnovers.

On the flip side, save for one turnover on a muffed punt return in the first quarter and one intentional delay of game penalty late in the game, New Bremen played about as clean of a game as a team can play, finishing with zero other penalties.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have done the delay of game after all,” Schmidt said jokingly. “Obviously, if you can, you want to limit your mistakes. As far as putting yourself up against it, that’s what we try to preach. It doesn’t happen all the time because you’re going to get penalties, but playing clean is obviously really important when you play against a good team. You don’t want to help them by basically hurting yourself.”

Despite the loss, the Eagles made it to their second championship game in three years and the future remains bright for Kennedy.

“The future at Kennedy is always going to be bright because we’re Kennedy and we have expectations and our kids work hard,” Prologo said.

The Eagles graduate just six seniors and are set to return a number of key pieces for next year, including Hadley, Smith, running back Thomas Easton, Donovan Salero-McCoy, LaMarcus Provitt, four members of the offensive line and most of the secondary, such as Smith, Braylin Dyson and Marcus Komora.

“The reason this team is going to be successful going forward is because when we lost in 2020, the seniors and juniors said, if we don’t win state, we fell short,” said senior Thomas Valent. “If you set the bar that high, great things are going to come and it just speaks of our tradition and what Kennedy is because this program will be back here soon and it’s because of (Prologo).”

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