Weaver looks to 21 returning lettermen to keep BW atop the OCC Capital standings

By GARY HENERY

News Man­ag­ing Editor

With the grad­u­a­tion of 19 seniors, Big Wal­nut will enter the 2012 foot­ball sea­son with­out that Fri­day night expe­ri­ence that led the Golden Eagles to a 9–3 cam­paign and a share of the 2011 Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion cham­pi­onship with New Albany and Olen­tangy Orange with a 6–1 record.

Joe Weaver, enter­ing his fourth sea­son as head coach with a 25–10 (.714) record, will look to 21 return­ing let­ter­men to lead Big Wal­nut into what looks to be another chal­leng­ing season.

“While we lost a lot of Fri­day night expe­ri­ence to grad­u­a­tion we return a group of hard-working play­ers with expe­ri­ence who love to play the game,” said Weaver who shared Cap­i­tal Divi­sion Coach-of-the-Year hon­ors with New Albany’s Mark Mueller and Orange’s Brian Cross.

Head­ing up the ros­ter of returnees are six seniors in quarterback/linebacker Car­son Chat­ter­ton, wide receiver/defensive back Seth Myers, fullback/linebacker Alex Clark, tight end/defensive line­man Brant Weiss, wide receiver/defensive back Gabe Kitchen and offensive/defensive line­man Julian Simon along with two juniors in offensive/defensive line­man Austin Crow and run­ning back/linebacker Alec Eisnnicher.

“Car­son is a leader on the field as well as in the class­room and Seth is a tal­ented ath­lete on both side of the line,” Weaver said. “Alex returns to start at full­back and Gabe gives us expe­ri­ence and speed at wide receiver. Brant gives us phys­i­cal strength on the line and Julian is a strong line­men with quick feet.”

Chat­ter­ton and Myers were named to the All-OCC foot­ball squad, Chat­ter­ton as a Spe­cial Men­tion selec­tion and Myers as an Hon­or­able Men­tion choice. Myers was a Sec­ond Team Divi­sion II All-Central Dis­trict hon­oree. Clark was the recip­i­ent of last season’s Most Improved Player Award after rush­ing for 367 yards and 6 touchdowns.

Also back are seniors Dakota Con­ley (RB/DB). Chad Har­ness (RB/LB), Bran­don Koon (OL/DL), James Miller (TE/DL), Anthony Roberto (WR/DB), Logan Williams (OL/DL), Trevor Williams (WR/DB) and Dominic Zitello (OL/LB) along with juniors Grant Burks (RB/LB), Austin Carr (RB/LB), Austin Hale (OL/DL), Austin Thomas (WR/DB) and Joel Win­dle (RB/DB).

Chat­ter­ton, Con­ley, Har­ness, Kitchen, Myers, Simon, Weiss, Zitello and Trevor Williams return as two-year let­ter win­ners. Burks, Carr, Clark, Crow, Eisnnicher, Hale, Koon, Miller, Roberto, Thomas, Win­dle and Logan Williams return as one-year let­ter winners.

Weaver’s return­ing vet­er­ans are being counted to fill the huge cleats of 19 Golden Eagle seniors who grad­u­ated with 25 vic­to­ries, an OCC Cap­i­tal Divi­sion title and two con­sec­u­tive OHSAA State Play­off appear­ances, reach­ing the Divi­sion II Region 7 finals last season.

Six seniors dom­i­nated the podium at last season’s post­sea­son awards ban­quet, includ­ing Grant Beam (Golden Eagle Award), Tyler Beam (Most Valu­able Offen­sive Player), Gar­rett Dan­drea (Most Valu­able Defen­sive Player), Jason Grif­fith (Most Valu­able Defen­sive Player), Corey Gib­son (Spe­cial Teams MVP) and Bran­don Sholl (Iron Eagle Award).

Eleven Golden Eagle seniors were voted to the All-OCC Cap­i­tal Divi­sion squad, includ­ing Trent Field­ing, Lucas Gar­cia, Tyler Beam, Dan­drea and Grif­fith. Sec­ond Team selec­tions were Joey John­son, Seth Wan­dling, Grant Beam, Gib­son and Sholl. Tyler McKen­zie was named Spe­cial Mention.

Seniors awarded Divi­sion II All-District hon­ors included First Team hon­orees Dan­drea, Field­ing and Grif­fith along with Gib­son, Sec­ond Team; Tyler Beam and Sholl, Spe­cial Men­tion; and Gar­cia and Wan­dling, Hon­or­able Mention.

Asso­ci­ated Press Divi­sion II All-Ohio recog­ni­tion went to Field­ing (Sec­ond Team Offense) and to Dan­drea and Grif­fith (Hon­or­able Mention).

Weaver said key losses on offense included were Tyler Beam at quar­ter­back, Gar­cia at run­ning back and Gib­son in the Golden Eagles’ kick­ing game.

“Tyler was a great leader and a com­peti­tor at quar­ter­back while Lucas was a very tal­ented run­ning back,” Weaver said. “We are look­ing to Car­son and Dakota to step in and get the job done.”

Tyler Beam led the Golden Eagles’ attack, total­ing 1,690 yards in total offense while account­ing for 21 touch­downs, rush­ing for 722 yards and 10 touch­downs while com­plet­ing 82 of 150 passes (.547) for 968 yards and 11 touchdowns.

Gib­son was a per­fect 43-for-43 in point-after attempts, adding eight field goals to lead the team in scor­ing with 67 points. He also aver­aged 32.2 yards per punt while his kick­offs forced oppo­nents to start their offen­sive series deep in their own territory.

“Gib­son is a key loss,” Weaver said. “Not only for his abil­ity as a place­kicker, but for his punt­ing as well … he was very efficient.”

Weaver said sopho­more Tyler Sat­ter­field, who kicked for the Golden Eagle JVs as a fresh­man last sea­son, and Clark will han­dle the kick­ing chores in 2012.

Weaver said key losses up front included Field­ing and Grif­fith along with Dan­drea at linebacker.

“Trent was aggres­sive up front while Jay gave us strong, phys­i­cal pres­ence,” Weaver noted, “and Gar­rett was the leader of our defense.”

Weaver is look­ing to Simon and Hale to replace Field­ing and Grif­fith on the line with Eisnnicher tak­ing over for Dan­drea at the line­back­ing corps.

Look­ing ahead to Big Walnut’s 2012 sea­son, which opens Fri­day with West­er­ville Cen­tral at 7:30 p.m. at Golden Eagle Sta­dium, Weaver sees a very com­pet­i­tive schedule.

“The Cap­i­tal Divi­sion is loaded with teams which have tal­ent from top to bot­tom. Every team has the abil­ity to make a run at the divi­sion cham­pi­onship,” Weaver said. “ Our goal will be to play each and every week with a sense of urgency … there is not a down week on our schedule.”

The Golden Eagles open their Cap­i­tal Divi­sion sched­ule against long-time rival Olen­tangy at 7:30 p.m. on Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 14, in Sun­bury. Ed Terwilliger’s Braves replace Hilliard Bradley in the divi­sion fol­low­ing the OCC’s realign­ment this summer.

Weaver will be assisted on the side­lines by Scott Wet­zel, Mike Adams, Brian Mackey, Char­lie Row­ley and Mike DeLaney.

Posted by Gary Henery on Aug 22 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.