NORTH ROBINSON — Jake Bruner will have a busy spring, along with two of his graduating senior football players.
In addition to being Colonel Crawford’s head football coach and the school’s dean of students/athletic director, Bruner has been selected to coach in this year’s Ohio North-South All-Star game Saturday, April 29 in Canton.
He was named the North Central Ohio Coaches Association Blue Division Coach of the Year and will help guide the North squad for the Division IV-VII game. He took over the Eagles program prior to last season when the late Ryan Teglovic stepped down for health reasons.
An assistant coach to Broc Dial of Dalton, Bruner will be coaching players from other schools, but a pair of familiar faces will join him on the 36-man North squad.
Linebacker Gabe Thew and defensive lineman Parker Ketterman, two stalwarts of last fall’s Eagles playoff team, were selected.
“It speaks to the season we had and obviously our seniors. We’ve never had two Colonel Crawford players play in the game the same year,” Bruner said.
Three former Eagles players have participated in the game in previous years. Players are chosen from each region by a panel of coaches.
“It’s an honor for them and to coach in it also. Both are anchors for us and four-year letter winners. They’ve played a lot of football for us, and the last two years especially both have been dominant players.”
Those two were integral members of the team that went to the Division VI regional semifinals before losing 14-7 to Columbus Grove.
“They were dominant on both sides of the ball, but defensively is where they both will play in this game. That’s probably their better positions, even though both are really good on both sides, and both are all-Ohio players,” Bruner said.
Ketterman (6-feet-2, 215) had 93 tackles, 42 tackles for loss, a single-season school record, and 10 sacks.
Thew (6-feet-2, 210) had 164 total tackles, including 29 TFL. Both racked up numerous post-season honors including all-league and all-Northwest District and served as offensive guards in an Eagles offense that broke multiple school and league records.
“They’re both tremendous students, great kids,” Bruner said. “It speaks volumes to them as they both work really hard.”
Despite losing an abundance of talent from the previous season, the Eagles finished 10-3 overall, 5-2 in the Northern 10 Athletic Conference and beat defending state champion Carey 21-14 in the quarterfinal round of the OHSAA playoffs.
“We had three really nice seasons in a row, and we lose kids and have to replace them,” he said. “But this past year we had a lot of holes to fill. At the end of the day, those two kids and some of our other seniors, carried us through a tough season, really.
“We had three new seniors, Ethan Holt, Tristin Baker and Jacob Maddy, come out for football this year that really made a big impact on our team’s success,” Bruner added.
Losing their head coach to pancreatic cancer in May and having Bruner step in presented a challenge to the team already facing a strong schedule.
“Not just emotionally tough, but because of the competition we play. Carey was the defending state champs,” Bruner said. “Seneca East won 7 games and their all-Ohio quarterback (Blake Foos) put up some crazy numbers. Upper with the (Kaden) Holman kid at quarterback had a great season, and Mohawk is emerging as well.
“We had some great teams we had to play. I was proud of how our kids rose to the occasion in every aspect,” he said.
In all, 15 seniors have graduated from that team.
“We’ll be a younger football team next year for sure,” Bruner said. “But those guys, after we lost to Columbus Grove, they’re in the locker room telling our younger guys, ‘Hey, don’t miss a day of weightlifting and listen to everything that coach says.'”
Bruner has coached high school football for 21 of the past 22 years, including seven of them as head coach at Bucyrus High School, where he compiled a record of 42-28. During his tenure there, he had the first nine-win season in 16 years.
He is a 1997 graduate of Colonel Crawford High School, where he was a four-year letter-winner and two-time captain in football and a three-year letter-winner in track and field. Bruner received an undergraduate degree in history and political science at Otterbein University, while lettering as an inside linebacker all four seasons.
Bruner, Thew and Ketterman will attend a banquet in February sponsored by the coaches association. An indoor practice will be held April 16 and three more practice sessions are planned April 26-28.
The Division IV-VII game is at 4 p.m. April 29, with the Division I-III game at noon.
Mount Gilead standout two-way lineman Judah Reid, another all-Ohio selection, is on the Division IV-VII South squad.