Ursuline, Crestwood meet tonight
Ursuline has not captured a regional crown since its 2010 state title run
By Brian Dzenis
YOUNGSTOWN
In case he forgot, plenty of people have reminded Larry Kempe that he has yet to win a regional championship.
Kempe’s Ursuline team is facing Mantua Crestwood for the Division IV, Region 11 final tonight at Ravenna High School. It will be coach’s third attempt in his four-year tenure. The Irish haven’t moved on to the state semifinals since 2010, which was also the last time the team won a championship.
“I just chuckle — somebody is just trying to get a reaction out of me,” Kempe said of the drought talk. “Oh yeah, they’re trying to get me a little bit. I laugh with it because it’s harmless jokes, but if you’re a competitor and if you’ve seen me on the sidelines, you know I’m a strong competitor and you want that.
“I think for anybody to say that, ‘Well, we’re just so happy to be in Week 13 that we don’t care,’ that’s baloney. This matters, to get this group to a state semifinal would be a heck of a feather in our cap.”
The Red Devils (10-2) entered the regional tournament as the No. 3 seed. They’ve scored at least 40 points in their last six games and are coming off a 40-26 victory over Parma Holy Name. Crestwood’s rushing attack is spearheaded by running backs Logan Thut and A.J. Foulkes, who combined for five touchdowns and 270 yards last weekend. Thut has put up 1,973 yards this season, but there is more to the Red Devils’ offense than just power running. The versatility on offense and the lack of shared opponents wit fifth-seeded Ursuline (7-5) make Crestwood a little tough to evaluate.
“I think they’re a good football team,” Kempe said. “They have an outstanding running attack, their quarterback runs that offense very well and they’re very big. You look at the sizes in our scouting report — and we went over that this afternoon — and they have good size. They’re one of the bigger teams we’re going to face. The unknown is who they play as opposed to who we play.
“I know who we play. I don’t really know who they play and I’ve already been asked to compare them to some of our opponents. They’re like Steubenville and they’re like Cardinal Mooney with some of the things that they do. When they want to go into the stack-I and muscle you, they’re going to stack-I. If they want to go into the spread with three or four wide, they become a traditional spread team [that] we’ve faced this season.”
The Red Devils are one of the few teams in Division IV that can match up with the Irish from a size standpoint. Kempe brought up Cardinal Mooney, Benedictine and Warren Harding as examples of teams that were evenly matched with Ursuline in the trenches. Irish offensive lineman John Neeley wasn’t too concerned about being on equal footing with the Red Devils.
“They’re all right,” he said. “They don’t play the schedule we play, but we’re going to come out and do what we do, do our best and we’ll come out with the victory.
“We have good size, too. I think our practices are more physical. We go harder, we go longer and we’re faster and stronger.”
This is the deepest Crestwood has gone in the postseason this decade, while Ursuline is looking to get over what Kempe calls a “a little skid.”
“We’re due for what we deserve and that’s the bottom line,” Kempe said. “If we play well enough and to win, we deserve to be in the game and win the game and I’m sure Crestwood is feeling the same thing.
“I’m not sure what their frame of mind is because I’ve never played them before, but with us, we have to deserve the win. Nothing is going to be given to us and we ask for no favors.”