Lake Catholic Football Team Proves Skeptics Wrong With Huge Season

defensive lineman heard all the assessments from outside observers about the Cougars’ prospects for the 2011 season and gave them little credence.

First-year starter Stepec, who had 80 tackles – including 28 for loss – and a team-high 12 sacks, along with eight rushing touchdowns, was clearly unbowed. The team had lost virtually all its starters from the prior season, but the junior sensed a powerful will building inside the locker room.

“I knew coming into the season, people were always saying, ‘you guys lost 21 of your 22 starters. You’re not making the playoffs.’ I said, ‘yeah, we’re going to make the playoffs,’ because I know all my teammates … we want to win. We want to go far. We want to go to states. Even though we didn’t make it to states, I’m still happy with where we got to,” Stepec said.

With a mixture of hard work, determination, if not outright defiance, Stepec and his teammates came to embody the oft quoted team ethos of “Next Man Up” as the Cougars shook off low expectations and earned a lofty postseason berth.

Lake Catholic finished 10-2 on the season and the postseason awards flowed right behind it as Stepec won the Division III defensive player of the year award and head coach .

Bell, who shared that honor with Mike Passerello of Oberlin Firelands, is proud of a senior class that includes Richie Miller, Aaron Phillips, Ryan Fyffe, Lou Vettel, Zach Hawkins, Steve Freiberg, Bill Sowers and many more who helped guide the team.

“Outside the immediate members involved in the program, there weren’t a lot of high expectations,” Bell said. “I’ve got to give a lot of credit to the seniors on this year’s team. From Day 1 … those guys have been fantastic. They’re a very committed group of young men who did a great job in their leadership.”

The Cougars quickly sprang to life to open the season and erased their underdog moniker after they defeated state powerhouses Youngstown  Ursuline and Cardinal Mooney in successive weeks in mid-September. Lake Catholic reached 4-0 before they lost to rival Walsh Jesuit, 14-12, on Sept. 24 for their only regular-season loss.

Lake Catholic dusted itself off from that disappointment and won its final five regular-season games to finish second in the North Coast League behind only Walsh Jesuit.

With a 9-1 mark, the Cougars rolled into the playoffs ranked fifth in the final regular-season Division III AP state poll and earned a No. 2 seed in the Division III, Region 9 playoffs.

Perceptions of the team had completely flipped from the beginning of the season and many thought the Cougars had the best chance of this area’s teams to win a state title, but their ambitions were cut short as they unexpectedly fell to sixth-seed St. Vincent-St. Mary in the semifinals, 31-14, on Nov. 11.

Senior utility man Evan Gormley and junior quarterback Mark Baniewicz sparked the Cougars rushing attack that chewed up opposing defenses. Gormley finished the season with 1,101 yards and 11 rushing touchdowns followed by Baniewicz with 736 yards and five touchdowns.

Gormley, who won the first team athlete award, also had a receiving touchdown and an interception return score.

In passing, Baniewicz threw for 1,176 yards with 13 TDs and eight interceptions, but Baniewicz came on late in the season throwing 10 touchdowns in his last three games prior to facing SVSM.

The defensively stout team yielded a mere 15.3 points per game and had 24 interceptions on the season.

After such a successful campaign and so many returning players, the expectations will likely flip-flop for 2012.

“As in all years, you lose very good players to graduation, but we’re real excited about the young men we have coming back. They got a lot of experience this year,” Bell said. “We feel very good about the younger guys in the program who will have an opportunity to step up and contribute.”