43
Mustangs galloped into postseason
A mid-season losing streak ended with a 5-game winning streak
By Ryan Buck
VIENNA
For a high school student, a two-hour school bus ride is hardly an inspiring proposition.
So imagine a two-hour bus ride through the night after a 30-point shellacking, while wearing the same football uniform one was just sweating through hours earlier.
The Mathews High football team’s 65-35 loss to Lucas in early October, one week after a 60-22 loss to Western Reserve Academy, left them at 2-3.
Third-year coach Mike Palumbo, his coaches and several team leaders decided they needed a conversation.
“We talked to the kids after the game,” Palumbo said. “We said, ‘Guys, we’ve got five league games coming up. Let’s just start out 0-0. Let’s start fresh and forget everything that’s happened.’”
Palumbo’s players took the message to heart. The Ohio High School playoffs were an afterthought.
“We were thinking that we needed to end with a winning record,” senior offensive tackle Dustin Beauchene said. “We’ve got to step it up in the next games and make it happen.
“I think we synced as a team. We knew we had to win all the league games to get a league championship and we made it happen.
The Mustangs (7-3) reeled off five wins to conclude their season, capturing the Northeast Athletic Conference title in the process and clinching a Division VII Region 23 playoff spot in a 27-14 Week 10 win over Pymatuning Valley.
“We took the mindset of starting a new season,” said Palumbo, in his third year as head coach. “We had beaten Newbury in our first league game, then had the losses. ‘Let’s go out and try and win the league.’”
A step-by-step approach has served Palumbo well. He took over a program that had not been to the state playoffs since 2007, winning one game in 2012. One year later, Mathews was 5-5.
“It’s just the kids buying into the program and the system we’re putting in,” he said. “I stressed to the kids that we needed to change some things around here. You can’t get used to just losing. Winning is just as contagious as losing so we built on our offense, what we did in the offseason program, getting some experienced coaches.”
Beauchene says Palumbo’s triple-option offense was refreshing, and now has come to fruition with the Mustangs averaging 33 points per game.
“Every year, it got better and better, we ran it more and more and now no one can stop it,” Beauchene said.
The Mustangs, the No. 8 seed, will travel to meet perennial state playoff participant Norwalk St. Paul, the region’s top seed.
“We’re preparing the same we we would a regular season game,” quarterback Cobie Pratt said. “We’re not trying to win with anything different.
“They’re a good team, obviously. They’re in the playoffs every year it seems, but we’re treating them like every other opponent we have.
Another two-hour bus rude awaits them Saturday. Mathews intends for this trip to be a more rider-friendly experience than the first.