WHO: Avon (10-0) vs. Defiance (8-2)
WHAT: Division III, Region 10 quarterfinal
WHEN: Tonight, 7 o’clock
WHERE: Avon Stadium
RADIO: WEOL 930-AM, WDLW 1380-AM

They call them Playstation numbers. They’re the kind of stats you normally rack up playing video games with the setting on “Easy” and using cheat codes to make your wide receivers have “hands of glue” or the ability to turn on his “afterburners” to beat a cornerback deep.
But the numbers rarely translate into the real world of football, and that’s why it’s hard to look at the season Avon senior quarterback Ryan O’Rourke has produced without shaking your head in amazement.
“I find myself everyday at practice more and more impressed and in awe with some of the things he does as a player,” Eagles coach Mike Elder said. “I’ve never quite coached a kid like him, I really haven’t. He’s that special.”
O’Rourke completed 104 of his 155 passes, finishing the regular season with 1,978 yards, 30 touchdowns and no interceptions. Elder said O’Rourke threw the ball 40 times fewer than last season, yet finished with 78 more yards — all while sitting on the sideline for 15 of the team’s 40 quarters this season due to lopsided leads.
O’Rourke’s stellar display has helped Avon to a perfect 10-0 regular season and earned them the No. 1 seed in the Division III, Region 10 quarterfinals. The Eagles will host No. 8 Defiance tonight at 7 o’clock.
“It’s a little upsetting to think about what could have been if we (starters) played every quarter,” O’Rourke said. “We definitely jumped on some teams that were young at the time and we had so much more experience than. It’s never easy to be taken out of a game, but that’s what you have to do in those situations.”
The remarkable numbers have been a long time coming for the Avon star. He has played in 39 of 40 varsity games during his high school career, and has been the Eagles starter for the last 37.
“I think it helps a lot when a quarterback gets experience like that because when you’re at practice you aren’t really getting game experience,” O’Rourke said. “You’re going up against a scout team and that’s not quite the same as going up against a varsity team.”
O’Rourke follows in the shoes of his brother Jason, who quarterbacked the Eagles in the early 2000s and went on to play for Baldwin-Wallace, in both his love for the position and his love of the sport. He credits Jason and his father for getting him into football at a young age.
“I played baseball a lot when I was younger,” Ryan said. “They got me to play football and I really liked it, and it kind of just took off from there.”
Elder said his quarterback has more skills than he’s been able to show this season. O’Rourke has the ability to scramble but hasn’t needed to thanks to the flawless blocking by his offensive line. O’Rourke said that since the passing game has been so effective this season, the team simplified things to maximize production on that side of the ball.
“There were certain things we couldn’t do and certain plays we couldn’t run because we were already up by so much in some of those early games,” O’Rourke said.
That doesn’t mean O’Rourke hasn’t developed a wide range of throws to help his team burn opposing defenses.
Elder also said O’Rourke throws the best deep ball he’s ever seen, while O’Rourke thinks his best throw is a five-step out route where he can utilize his arm strength by zipping the ball to the sideline.
“He doesn’t have a weakness throwing the football,” Elder said. “Wherever he wants to put it, he has the ability to do so.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean Defiance is shaking in its boots. Bulldogs coach Jerry Buti faced former Kenton quarterback Benjamin Mauk, who set eight national passing records in high school, and was burned for six passing touchdowns by Mauk’s younger brother Maty in a 42-21 loss earlier this season.
Yet Buti still knows a good passer when he sees one and said O’Rourke is right up there with the best he’s seen.
“He’s really tough,” Buti said. “This kid is as cool as they come, very Tom Brady like. He looks like he knows how to slow the game down in front of him and he doesn’t make mistakes.”
Much of that comes from the effort O’Rourke puts into improving his game, according to Elder. The coach said his quarterback studies and understands the sport, and knows the playbook as well as anyone on the team.
“It’s like having an additional coach on the field,” Elder said. “We could accidentally send the play in wrong and he’s the kind of kid that will self-correct it. … He’s bailed us out a couple times in that regard. Yeah, he’s a special young man.”
Contact Shaun Bennett at 329-7137 or sbennett@chroniclet.com.

AVON EAGLES

COLORS: Purple and Gold
CONFERENCE: West Shore
RECORD: 10-0, 7-0 WSC
PLAYOFF HISTORY: 2 appearances (last in 2004)
PLAYOFF RECORD: 2-2
STATE TITLES: 0
COACH: Mike Elder, 2nd year

Noteworthy

• Avon advanced to the state semifinals in their first playoff appearance in 1996. The Eagles became the seventh area team to reach the state tournament, joining Avon Lake (2004, ’03), Berea (’82, ’78), Clearview (’78, ’72), Elyria Catholic (’87, ’84, ’83, ’82, ’81, ’77, ’76), Olmsted Falls (’02, ’00), Wellington (’82) and Westlake (’84). To reach state, a team needed one win between 1980-84, two wins from 1985-98 and three wins from 1999 to present. Before 1980, football was divided into three classes and only four teams from each class played in the postseason.
• The Eagles finished the regular season with the area’s top offense (43.5 points per game) and second in defense (13.7) only to Clearview (10.6). Their impressive season netted them the No. 1 seed in their region, the top spot in the Chronicle’s final Top 10 and a No. 2 finish in Division III in the Associated Press’ final poll.

Scouting report

If any Avon fans are worried about tonight’s home matchup with Defiance in the Division III playoffs, they need only to talk to Bulldogs coach Jerry Buti to allay their fears.
“They’re as good as anyone we’ve seen this season,” Buti said of the Eagles. “Their passing attack is going to create problems for us. We’re probably going to get toasted a couple times.”
Gamesmanship or is Buti just keeping it real? After all, there aren’t too many teams the Eagles have faced this year that haven’t been burned by Avon’s potent passing attack. Eagles senior quarterback Ryan O’Rourke has thrown for nearly 2,000 yards and 30 touchdowns, with no interceptions. Yet he’s not ready to say the film he’s watched on Defiance has him brimming with confidence.
“They’re pretty consistent with coverages and schemes,” O’Rourke said. “But you never know if a team is going to try and confuse you on the field when you get out there and play them. They are a very sound team in what they do.”
Which, on offense, is run the ball. Senior running back Travis Spitnale has rushed for over 1,500 yards this season and several other players touch the ball out of the backfield as well. Buti said the Bulldogs normally run out of an offset I-formation, but use a bootleg pass and a spread to mix things up.
“The most impressive thing about them is the way their offensive line comes off the football,” Avon coach Mike Elder said. “They don’t beat themselves. They don’t put the ball on the ground, they don’t make mistakes and they don’t take penalties. We’re going to have to play physical football to stop them.”
As much as Buti says he’s worried about Avon’s offense, the Eagles defense is also causing plenty of concern.
“Avon uses a 3-5 stack and we’ve only seen that one time this year,” Buti said.
Defiance’s game plan will focus on staying with the Eagles and not letting O’Rourke and the offense take the Bulldogs out of the game early.
“(Avon) hasn’t played a meaningful fourth quarter since the beginning of the season so we’ll need to keep pressure on them throughout the game,” Buti said.

UNSUNG HERO

Albert Tomechko, Avon senior guard

Avon’s Ryan O’Rourke has thrown for nearly 2,000 yards this season and Eagles running back Marquis Harrell has rushed for over a 1,000. What do the two players have in common? They both have the same group of guys blocking for them, and senior right guard Albert Tomechko is the leader of that offensive line.
“It feels really good and we all know (we’re part of those numbers),” Tomechko said. “The coaches tell us that Ryan wouldn’t be able to do what he’s doing if we didn’t give him time to throw the ball, and Marquis pounds the ball up in there and there’s times that he really makes us look good.”
But anchoring a solid line isn’t the only reason Eagles coach Mike Elder points to Tomechko as one of the best players he’s got on the field.
“It’s his leadership,” Elder said. “The way the kid conducts himself, how hard he worked during the offseason — he was the leader throughout our entire offseason in the weight room. You had to kick him out of the place.
“As a coach, he’s the kind of kid you need on your football team from a leadership standpoint.”
Tomechko has also served as an inspirational role model
to his teammates, playing every down of every game this year after seeing his junior season come to an end when he tore his ACL.
“This has been a perfect season so far, it couldn’t be any more satisfying to me,” Tomechko said. “Every guy on this team I feel like he’s my brother. We’ve worked hard and we’ve trained hard, and we deserve every bit of it.”

 

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