IT'S ALL FOR THE FUN OF SPORT SPORTSMANSHIP SHOWS THROUGH ON BOTH SIDES AS STRUGGLING FAIRPORT, OFF 92-0 ROUT LAST YEAR, GIVES ITS ALL IN REMATCH WITH MARTINS FERRY
Author: MIKE PETICCA PLAIN DEALER REPORTER

They probably had no business playing each other.

Fairport Harbor Harding and Martins Ferry. One, a struggling Division VI football program; the other, a Division IV powerhouse. A three-hour drive, almost, between Fairport, the tiny town on Lake Erie, and little Martins Ferry, on the Ohio River.

But play they did. Twice. They played Friday night in Fairport, despite what happened in the teams' first meeting. On Oct.16,1998, host Martins Ferry led the Skippers, 76-0, at halftime and won, 92-0.

Getting crushed leaves an impression. As Fairport prepared this past week for the rematch, some of the veteran Skippers were concerned.

"A lot of my teammates are intimidated, I know that," said senior Tony Zalar, a 6-0, 270-pound tackle. "I tell them that Martins Ferry hits hard and moves fast, but you've got to hold your own and take care of responsibilities. I tell them that if they're scared, they're going to get hurt."

A little apprehension on the Skippers' part was understandable. The Purple Riders are quick and they're deep. Last year, coach Dave Bruney played all 54 of them against Fairport before halftime. The fourth-, fifth- and sixth-string tailbacks combined to score 44 points. Martins Ferry went on to a 10-0 record before losing to Youngstown Ursuline in a first-round playoff game.

Fairport, with 19 players, went 1-9, getting a 26-20 victory over Ashtabula Sts. John & Paul in the season finale.

"We played better after we got beat, 92-0, than we had before," Fairport coach Wally Kesling said. "The kids said, `We got our tails kicked, but we gave it everything we've got.'

"Maybe some people think I'm crazy, but I think you sometimes can get as much from losing a game as you do from winning a game. Our kids learned not to quit. And I think their kids might have learned something, too, beating us, 92-0, and seeing us not quit."

As Friday's game approached, the Skippers felt comfortable about one thing. They didn't think, no matter what the score would be, that the Purple Riders would rub it in.

"They treated us with respect last year," said Fairport's 5-11, 280-pound senior tackle, Josh Mikina. "I didn't hear any trash talking."

The Skippers didn't think, that Bruney had run up the score. In fact, Bruney asked Kesling if he wanted the officials to run the game clock nonstop in the second half. Kesling said no, but he appreciated the gesture.

And, as the Skippers emerged from their locker room for the second-half kickoff, the 8,000 fans at Purple Riders Stadium and the Martins Ferry team gave them a standing ovation.

"The standing ovation, the people in their town, the whole atmosphere was great," Zalar said. "They thought we were going to load up our stuff and turn on the bus key. They really appreciated us going back out there and going at it."

TOWNS OF RENOWN - Martins Ferry might not be a big place, but its football is big-time. So much so that people don't want to play the Purple Riders. Bigger schools in the Steel Valley area figure there's little to gain - and a game and computer playoff ranking points to lose - by playing them.

About two years ago, Martins Ferry had openings for the seventh week of the 1998 and 1999 seasons. Checking the internet, Bruney and Athletic Director Warren Hood found that Fairport had the same open dates. Coincidentally, Kesling called Martins Ferry a few days later and the games were set.

Kesling and Hood have become friends. Hood and two Martins Ferry teachers visited Fairport in mid-August and filmed home movies of the city. The Martins Ferry staff has a video library of the towns the football team plays in.

"I teach Ohio history," Hood said. "We wanted to see the salt mines and other things in Fairport. I was impressed.

"Looking from just outside Fairport's stadium, you can see Lake Erie. You see the sand, the sailboats. People travel six to eight hours to go to a place like Myrtle Beach. Here we were in Ohio, seeing a beach that looked like it was in Florida."

Fairport and Martins Ferry have both built solid sports traditions.

Fairport's football teams have struggled in recent years, but the Skippers can look back to seasons like 1991, when they finished 9-2, made the playoffs and had a streak of six shutouts. The Fairport baseball team has been ranked first in the Associated Press state poll several times during the 1990s.

Few sports programs can match the tradition of the one at Martins Ferry. Former Browns great Lou Groza graduated from the school in 1941. Nine months before Pearl Harbor was bombed, Groza helped the Purple Riders to a state championship - in basketball.

Martins Ferry had a 33-game football winning streak that ended in 1963.

Two weeks ago, NFL Films spent four days in Martins Ferry, working on a high school football feature that is scheduled to air in January.

NFL Films decided to visit the town at the urging of an employee who had read a superb book about high school football, "Friday Night Lights." The preface to the book is a poem by Martins Ferry native James Wright, titled "Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio."

"It really was a thrill," Bruney said of being followed by NFL Films. "We're a small community, about 8,000 people. The town was really buzzing about it. We have a pretty good football tradition. In fact, the whole Steel Valley area does."

ACES DOWN AND OUT - Despite last year's lopsided score, the teams prepared for Friday's nonleague game as they would any other.

"We treat all teams with respect, and we go into every game with the same focus," Zac Bruney, the Purple Riders' standout senior quarterback and the coach's son, said Tuesday.

"We know they're a completely different team than last year. We were on a roll then, and that game had a snowball effect. We know they're improved."

Martins Ferry brought a 5-1 record and playoff hopes into Fairport. The Skippers were 2-4, and with a 2-0 East Suburban Conference mark, they hoped to win their final three league games and the ESC title.

Fairport was without starting quarterback Dan Anderson. He was ineligible after being ejected from the previous game. Anderson was tossed after he unintentionally hit a referee in the head with a football. According to Kesling, the referee had called for the ball from Anderson, but was hit when he turned away to respond to a coach's question.

The Skippers' roster lists 29 players, including Anderson. Martins Ferry is down to 48 players. The Purple Riders had 22 seniors a year ago, including quarterback Fred Ray, who earned a football scholarship to Ohio University.

Martins Ferry played Friday without two Division I college prospects: tailback Julius Wallace and tackle Jay Agnew, a 6-3, 285-pound bruiser who runs the 40-yard dash in less than 4.8 seconds. Wallace has a leg injury; Agnew has a sprained ankle.

FRIDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL - Martins Ferry's chartered bus pulled into the Fairport parking lot Friday afternoon at 4:30. The team is used to playing in Purple Riders Stadium, which was built in 1936 and has a seating capacity of 6,500. With a vast standing room area, as many as 10,000 people have watched Martins Ferry play.

A roof hangs above the home side of Purple Riders Stadium. On the other side, a fence has replaced a concrete wall that was weakened by Ohio River floods in the 1970s.

The north and east sides of Fairport's Greig Field, built in 1934, sit below street level. The south, or home side, bleachers are attached to the school, like the press box looming above. The stadium seats about 1,500.

Several hundred fans of both teams made it to Greig Field for the 7:30 game. Earlier this season, 1,800 Purple Riders supporters drove about five hours to see their team play in Wheelersburg, an Ohio city just across the river from Kentucky.

"I think we're just going to try to have some fun," Fairport senior end Shane Wise said an hour before kickoff. "I think that's all we're going to be able to do. It's tough, because they beat us so badly last year and they're bigger than us."

When the Purple Riders' Tony Collette - a sprinter on a state championship track relay team with Wallace - ran for a 67-yard touchdown on the first play from scrimmage and returned a punt 55 yards for a touchdown four plays later, it was shades of 92-0.

Martins Ferry led, 32-0, after one quarter and 48-0 at halftime.

Suddenly, though, the Skippers played as if they wanted to prove they belonged on the same field as the Purple Riders. Junior quarterback Andrew Luthanen, standing strong in the pocket in Anderson's absence, led Fairport on a 70-yard drive that stalled at the Martins Ferry 3-yard line.

Then, on the opening drive of the third quarter - and against Martins Ferry's first-team defense - Luthanen and running backs Brett Hughes and Dom Sherwood keyed a 77-yard march capped by Sherwood's 2-yard touchdown plunge.

Fairport drove to the Purple Riders' 12 in the fourth quarter but didn't score. Martins Ferry won, 56-6, but the Skippers had learned that they could play a little, too.

"Once our guys realized that Martins Ferry is just a football team and not a bunch of he-men," Zalar said, "we showed up."

The teams go their own ways now. No new two-year playing contract is imminent. But as Bruney talked about the Skippers' competitiveness and Kesling spoke of the Purple Riders' sportsmanship, and while players from both teams mingled, sharing pizza, a Martins Ferry-Fairport game didn't seem such a bad idea after all.

E-mail: mpeticca@plaind.com

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