Badin Seeks Strong Bounceback After First Loss, Hosts CJ In GCL Coed Opener

By Rick Cassano

HAMILTON – Regular-season losses have been pretty uncommon in recent times for Badin High School’s football team, so the Rams have gone through a rare reset this week.

La Salle came to the Matandy SportsPlex and won 27-14 in Week 5, dropping Badin to 4-1 in its last tune-up for Greater Catholic League Coed Division play.

“The mentality is staying the same this week, maybe a little more intensified,” said Rams senior Evan Price, who shares captain duties with classmates Hudson Heid, Logan Karwisch and L.T. King. “It all starts with the captains and the seniors and then everybody falls into place after that. We know we lost. We’re ready to fix it.

“We’re not undefeated anymore, we can lose, and we’ve got to get better. There’s a good chance we could face them in the (Division II) playoffs, so we don’t want to lose to them twice.”

Last Friday’s setback was only the fourth defeat in Badin’s last 63 regular-season contests.

“We don’t necessarily get that feeling very often lately, so it’s kind of a bad taste in our mouth and we’ve got to do something about it,” Rams coach Nick Yordy said. “We had some bad breaks against La Salle, and we told the kids we can deal with this. I think we have tough kids. We have Badin football kids, and that has nothing to do with me or our coaches. That’s a tradition-type thing.”

Yordy said what he liked was the fact that his team rallied from a 21-0 deficit and outscored the Lancers 7-3 in the second half.

“That’s the big thing we took out of that,” Yordy said. “In my opinion, we played pretty well in the second half. It would’ve been very easy for the kids to tuck their tails between their legs and kind of give up, but we didn’t do that. We had a good halftime. We fought. We battled.”

Badin will kick off GCL Coed play at home against Dayton Chaminade Julienne on Friday night, with the Rams seeking their ninth consecutive league championship.

The Eagles are just 1-4 with a 28-0 victory over Columbus Hartley. CJ was outscored 156-55 in losses to Miamisburg, Withrow, Bellbrook and Edgewood.

“I’m wishing we had a victory or two more. I thought maybe we had a chance to have that happen. But we’re competing,” Eagles coach Marcus Colvin said. “I do think we’re better this year. We’re much more competitive. We haven’t really sparked yet. We’ve had moments of positivity, but we haven’t been playing complementary football. I still see that in our future as we go through our last five weeks.

“We might be undermanned at times, but what I really sense is that our kids are believing. They’re welcoming the challenges in our schedule. I do think we still have a chance to really spark and be the team that I think we as coaches envision us to be.

“This will be our first game at Yordyville. My son played there last year in eighth grade, so I got to actually visit their wonderful new stadium. I know when we got our stadium, that was a game-changer. We expect to give Badin a game. There’s nothing to be afraid about. We’re just going to go down there and see how we perform.”

CJ dropped a 38-22 decision to Edgewood last week after losing to Bellbrook, now the state’s top-ranked Division III squad, by a 29-7 tally.

Colvin said last Friday’s defeat was “really disappointing, but I think Edgewood is a lot better than people might perceive them to be.”

“We’ve been really battle tested,” the Eagles coach said. “One of our biggest issues is trying to get off to better starts. Sometimes it’s us making mistakes and sometimes it’s just the other team executing really well, but slow starts have been our downfall. We need to play a little bit better earlier and protect the ball.”

This is Year 2 for Colvin in his second stint as CJ’s head coach. He coached the Eagles for 11 seasons before heading to Beavercreek for two years.

Colvin admitted that CJ wasn’t very competitive last season while going 1-9 and getting outscored 369-101.

“Last year was just a whole disappointing 10 weeks of football for me and our program,” Colvin said. “We should be better than what we put out there last year, and we definitely are. I don’t like losing, but what I have been most proud of with these kids is their growth and character on and off the field. That’s showing up on the field too.”

More than 75 percent of the Eagles’ offense has come through the air. Senior Jaiven Manley (71-of-126, 754 yards, six TDs) is the primary quarterback, though freshman Aris Potts (11-of-12, 130 yards, two TDs) gets in from time to time.

Seniors Devon Wilcox (26 catches, 443 yards, eight TDs) and Sean Flagg (20 catches, 117 yards, one TD) are among the top receivers, along with sophomore Nate Felton (17 catches, 200 yards).

Colvin would prefer not to have such a huge disparity between throwing and rushing yards. He said CJ hasn’t run the ball very well and is usually playing from behind, a combination that’s led to the current statistics.

“We like our quarterback and a lot of our skill kids play on the outside,” Colvin said. “What we’re probably the most comfortable with is spreading people out and getting the ball quickly out of our quarterbacks’ hands and into our playmakers’ hands. But we’ve got to figure out how to consistently get some control in our run game.”

The Eagles’ spread offense and 4-4 defense are similar to what Badin does on both sides of the ball. Colvin said the defensive leaders are senior free safety Elias Dangerfield, who’s committed to Illinois State, and senior end Anthony Clemens Jr., who has numerous NCAA Division II and FCS offers. Senior linebacker Aiden Frederick leads CJ in tackles.

“Our strength for sure this year is our defense,” Colvin said. “I think our defensive line is really good. We had to toughen up defensively this year and put guys in the box. We ran a 3-4 last year, but we were a little soft and kind of got exploited in it.”

Badin will move forward without junior running back Chace Blanton, who suffered a season-ending ankle injury against La Salle, and sophomore defensive lineman Bobby Rice, a transfer from Madison who was only allowed to play in the first five games of the year.

Yordy said the Rams will be outsized at the line of scrimmage, but that’s nothing new.

“Their defensive-line guys are big. Their D-line kind of jumps out on film,” the Badin coach said. “CJ is definitely on the uptick in my opinion. You can see the difference on film with guys flying around and more kids out on the team. The kids look physically better.”

Price believes the Rams’ offensive line is up for the challenge this week. He said the group has come together nicely and continues to get stronger.

Senior Chance Retherford (6-2, 215) and Price (6-0, 235) are the two returning starters and they’re in different positions this year – Retherford has moved from guard to tackle and Price has moved from center to guard. The other starters are senior guard Dominic Bowling (5-9, 185), junior center Sawyer Arnold (5-10, 240) and sophomore tackle Bentley Moyer (6-3, 220).

“I was a little worried at the beginning,” Price said. “The first couple weeks it was really high in some points and really low in others, but I feel as the weeks have progressed, we’ve played at a higher level more consistently. Consistency was our thing at the beginning of the season.”

He said chemistry is vital to have success up front.

“We’re all friends and trust in each other,” Price said. “If you don’t trust the person next to you, it’s hard to do your job.”

Price has played center the last two years. He said he was a center in third grade, then quit and didn’t return to the sport until the eighth grade with the Junior Rams. He came back as a tackle.

“I don’t know what it was. I just thought it wasn’t for me,” Price said of stepping away from the game. “It was a couple of parents that really convinced me to come back. The biggest one was L.T. King’s dad.”

CJ leads the series with Badin 30-28-2, though the Rams have won the last six meetings. The series began in 1927 when it was a matchup of all-boys schools.

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