Madonna ready for challenge
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
By MIKE MATHISON- The Herald Star
Three years ago, the Madonna football team defeated Bishop Donahue at John Marshall High School to finish the season at 5-5.
Forty games later, 37 of which are wins, the Blue Dons find themselves 48 minutes away from claiming their second West Virginia Class A state championship, 22 years after the first.
Madonna will take on Man High School at 7 p.m. Saturday at Wheeling Island Stadium for the right to hold the ultimate trophy.
"We had to play younger kids in that game," said veteran Madonna mentor Bob Kramer. "We had a lot of the older kids on that team go down and the younger kids stepped up and got a taste of it.
"They proved that they could play. Experience is a great thing. The more these kids have played, the better they have gotten."
Those freshmen that year are now seniors and are one step away from the ultimate prize.
They dropped a 62-7 decision to Wheeling Central in the semifinals as sophomores.
They lost a 23-7 decision to Williamstown a year ago in the state title tilt.
There is only one rung left on the ladder.
"I have a great group of kids," said Kramer, who won his 101st game as Blue Dons coach with last week's 18-7 victory over Wheeling Central. "They play well together and compliment each other so well in what they do and what they say.
"It's been a real team effort this year. I can't say enough about how hard these kids have worked."
The victory over the Maroons Knights was a big one. Madonna had come up on the wrong side of the score far too often.
That so-called hex was broken last spring when the baseball team defeated Wheeling Central to make it to the Class A state semifinals.
"Our kids have also beaten Wheeling Central in girls soccer this year, in golf this year and in cheerleading this year," said Kramer. "The (football) kids said they couldn't break that streak. They really believed that this was the year that they could do it."
Basically, to a man, the Blue Dons football players said a big goal this season was to play the Maroon Knights on the natural turf at Jimmy Carey Stadium.
"To have them come up to Jimmy Carey and for us to play the way we did, it made our season legitimate," said Kramer. "Everyone talked about our schedule, their schedule. When you play the game you have to play it between two teams.
"It doesn't matter who you had played before that at all. We felt very confident that our kids could play against Wheeling Central and the kids felt that way."
Man had a big game of its own. The Hillbillies, spotting Richwood a 7-0 lead, finished with a 27-20 victory.
This will be Man's first state championship appearance in football since the 1984 team lost a 14-10 decision to Grafton in Class AA.
"In my history as the coach, that win Saturday was the biggest of all," said Hillbillies coach Harvey Arms, who is 40-39 in his seven seasons. "As you go through your career, you always hope to get to this point and now it's here.
"This is a new experience for us and we're a little bit awed by it, really. We'll work hard again and try to be ready for a really good Madonna football team.
"You start Week 1 with the idea in mind of playing in the state championship game and, now, here we are.
"We'll get at it as best as we can."
The Hillbillies are led by quarterback Ryan Crum, who has over 400 yards on the ground.
Brandon Plymale leads Man's running game with 796 yards rushing in the regular season. Michael Lomax has 402 yards and Derek Lomax 398.
