There will come a time the Kirtland football team looks back on what it has accomplished.
Now isn’t that time.
The Hornets crushed host Perry, 30-6, in a key CVC Chagrin game at Perry’s Alumni Stadium on Oct. 1, spoiling the Pirates’ homecoming in the process.
The win extends Kirtland’s winning streak to 47 games — the fourth-longest streak in America — and also extends the Hornets’ streak of consecutive CVC wins to 28, dating to the 2016 season.
The win also halts Perry’s CVC win streak at 37 games, dating to the 2015 season.
But the streaks mean nothing, senior linebacker Joseph Coleman said.
“It doesn’t mean much. We just go week to week,” Coleman said. “We just want to get the end goal, and that’s to win back-to-back-to-back-to-back state championships.”
The Hornets (6-0) were crisp in pretty much every facet of the game against Perry (5-2).
Kirtland once again ran the ball effectively, piling up 291 of its 341 yards of offense on the ground. The defense limited Perry to 179 yards, only 49 of which came on the ground. The Hornets didn’t turn the ball over and only committed three five-yard penalties.
Coach Tiger LaVerde acknowledged the high-caliber performance of his team in a win that puts the Hornets in firm control of the CVC Chagrin with wins over Perry and West Geauga already with three more league games to go.
“There’s not a whole lot to look at or be upset about besides our punt team,” LaVerde said. “We didn’t do a good job of keeping them off our punter. That’s small beans, though, when the offense, defense and most of the special teams are that decent.”
Perry coach Bob Gecewich agreed.
“I firmly believe when you play a championship-level program, there’s no room for error,” he said. “We saw that tonight. You can talk about it, but until you touch that stove, it doesn’t really matter.”
Kirtland quarterback Ramon Lescano ran for three touchdowns in the game, two in the first quarter that staked the Hornets to a 14-0 lead.
Perry cut the margin early in the second when Brayden Richards hit Brock Sivon on a corner fade from 14 yards out, but Kirtland took a 17-6 lead into the locker room at halftime on a 30-yard field goal by Johnny Raguz.
The lead allowed Kirtland’s defense to get aggressive.
PHOTOS: Kirtland-Perry football, Oct. 1, 2021
“With what we do offensively, trying to hold the ball and chew the clock, it put (Perry) in a situation they kind of had to get a little one dimensional. Then we got after the quarterback a little bit.”
With Coleman, Mason Rus and Philip LaVerde blitzing from the linebacking position — and with Robert Laney getting two sacks from the defensive line — Richards didn’t have a ton of time to pass, though he did complete 5 of 14 passes for 125 yards. Sivon had four of the five catches for 83 yards.
“The defense was exceptional except for one play on fourth-and-10. I thought they played outstanding,” LaVerde said. “You win big games against great teams with great defense. Our kids know that. Mason Rus is a special linebacker. He makes play after play. All the kids did. The D-line was active, the linebackers played well, but Mason certainly stands out.”
Lescano scored his third and final touchdown early in the fourth. Then after a botched punt attempt, Tommy Gogolin went 10 yards around left end for the final score with less than four minutes left.
“The line did amazing tonight,” Lescano said. “Mason Rus hit the holes, and the defense set us up all night.”
Rus ended with 161 yards rushing, while Lescano had 75.
Richards ran for 20 yards on 11 carries to go with his 125 passing yards. Aidan Lefelhoc had a team-high 26 yards rushing for Perry.
The Pirates lost two-way lineman A.J. Kifus in the first half to an apparent knee injury. He did not return, and Gecewich said he didn’t have a preliminary report on the junior lineman.
“I think we did some positive things,” said Gecewich, whose Pirates play Orange next week. “Obviously we didn’t do enough of them. I didn’t do a good enough job. Defensively, we were really prepared. Offensively, I don’t think I gave our kids enough answers.”
With the win against Perry in hand, the Hornets turn their attention to a Week 8 game against Lakeside.
“This was a great win,” Lescano said. “We knew coming in this was our big game in the regular season. We marked it on our calendar. We executed here and got the W.”
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