Game of the Century: St. Thomas Aquinas at Minerva

Who snaps their streak?

  • St. Thomas Aquinas Knights

    Votes: 6 14.0%

  • Minerva Lions

    Votes: 37 86.0%
  • Total voters
    43
The fact that Minerva is projected to win shows how far down the St Thomas Aquinas program has fallen. I know a lot of nice athletes that are alumni of Aquinas have children going to CCC now. Seems weird seeing some of these family names at CCC and their feeders.
 
Sykotyk said:
National record for consecutive losses is believed to be 82. So neither team is even halfway there yet
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But one will emerge triumphantly with their streak still intact.

When I was in school back in the 70's our school scored no points for two consecutive years. That's really hard to beat. Not meaning to one up these programs here. Hats off to the great kids and coaches of these programs.
 
This game will not be close. Lions will win big. And that's good for Minerva, because if they are 37-49 pt underdogs on their next 5 league games, according to Drew's Fantastic 50.
 
SportsLife10 said:
And that's good for Minerva, because if they are 37-49 pt underdogs on their next 5 league games, according to Drew's Fantastic 50.
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Minerva fan right now-
Star Wars GIF
 
CoachJames said:
How many players does each team have this year?
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STA has 35, much better than the 20-22 of the last couple years. The school has grown enrollment by over 30% the last several years and that is projected to continue. If the coaches and players hold the course the future should be better. STA has some young talent, but the fundamentals are not there yet.

The Minerva v. Aquinas games of the 2000s, in which they played each other about 10 straight years, were my favorite games to go to each year. Wishing for both programs to return to their strong histories very soon. They will.
 
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SportsLife10 said:
3-90 is crazy, but true. Since the end of the 2014 season, Minerva has won only 3 games.... AT West Branch in 2019 to end a 44 game losing streak. Then, the other 2 games were gifts because the Covid year moved the playoffs up to week 7...and the Lions last 2 opponents (Sandy Valley and I don't remember the second) were still in the playoffs in week 9 and 10, allowing Minerva to pick up a bad Rootstown and bad United team. Otherwise those would have been losses and we would be saying 1-92 record with a 44 and 48 game losing streaks. With that said, Lions WIN big this week. St. Thomas is that bad. Minerva 26 St Thomas 8
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The Dock said:
Such an underrated anecdote considering the general success that West Branch would go on to achieve after the 2019 season, i.e. a 35-3 regular season record across the four seasons that followed 'that loss.'
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The crazy thing is Minerva had 1 senior on the field when they beat WB in 2019 and had some very good football players returning the next year. they went 2-8 in 2020 beating Rootstown and United to end the regular season. We all thought that would be the year to see a turn around and become competitive.
 
MINFAN said:
The crazy thing is Minerva had 1 senior on the field when they beat WB in 2019 and had some very good football players returning the next year. they went 2-8 in 2020 beating Rootstown and United to end the regular season. We all thought that would be the year to see a turn around and become competitive.
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Maybe it's time for Minerva to find a new conference? I know they do all right in the other sports in the EBC, but football is the main revenue sport and if there is no realistic hope for them to be competitive in league play, Minerva should probably consider looking elsewhere. Maybe the smaller IVC division with Malvern, East Canton, Strasburg would be an option?
 
Bull GreenDog said:
Maybe it's time for Minerva to find a new conference? I know they do all right in the other sports in the EBC, but football is the main revenue sport and if there is no realistic hope for them to be competitive in league play, Minerva should probably consider looking elsewhere. Maybe the smaller IVC division with Malvern, East Canton, Strasburg would be an option?
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Conference is already extremely weak with the exception of west branch.
 
Bull GreenDog said:
Maybe it's time for Minerva to find a new conference? I know they do all right in the other sports in the EBC, but football is the main revenue sport and if there is no realistic hope for them to be competitive in league play, Minerva should probably consider looking elsewhere. Maybe the smaller IVC division with Malvern, East Canton, Strasburg would be an option?
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Moving because of football is sometimes a bad decision. If the rest of the sports and the drive time are good for a league, stay in that league and schedule the out of conference games against similar level teams. Looks like they may be doing that already. I would hope that the administration of schools in a similar situation are seeking each other out so that they can put an end to these type of losing streaks.
 
Yappi said:
Moving because of football is sometimes a bad decision. If the rest of the sports and the drive time are good for a league, stay in that league and schedule the out of conference games against similar level teams. Looks like they may be doing that already. I would hope that the administration of schools in a similar situation are seeking each other out so that they can put an end to these type of losing streaks.
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Not sure, but the PAC/IV conferences might work better for them.
Alliance moving to the MAC and then eventually the EBC worked out for them.
Orrville's move also was a positive.
Many of the Y'town area schools who went from the Steel Valley conference to the MAC/AAC/NE3 all appear to be thriving.

But you're right ........
making a move that incrementally adds much longer travel/busing costs, would be a nightmare for students/parents/fans.
 
Struthersfan said:
Not sure, but the PAC/IV conferences might work better for them.
Alliance moving to the MAC and then eventually the EBC worked out for them.
Orrville's move also was a positive.
Many of the Y'town area schools who went from the Steel Valley conference to the MAC/AAC/NE3 all appear to be thriving.

But you're right ........
making a move that incrementally adds much longer travel/busing costs, would be a nightmare for students/parents/fans.
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Sometimes it works out. My only issue is long travel times because of football competitiveness.
 
Bull GreenDog said:
Maybe it's time for Minerva to find a new conference? I know they do all right in the other sports in the EBC, but football is the main revenue sport and if there is no realistic hope for them to be competitive in league play, Minerva should probably consider looking elsewhere. Maybe the smaller IVC division with Malvern, East Canton, Strasburg would be an option?
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Minerva just got beat 42-0 by Sandy Valley so moving to the IVC probably isn't the answer, the answer lies within. We could move to the IVC and have a better chance to win a game or 2 but that is still not the answer. Speakman took over a nightmare of a program. He is in year 3 and next year they should start being more competitive. I believe they have a few good classes in a row coming up soon, grades 8,9 and 10 are all good and the juniors have some big guys and aren't bad. If they don't improve over the next 2-3 years, then I would think they would have to consider a new conference. Most boys' programs are decent so there are athletes in Minerva. I was there when we beat WB in 2019, and we were competitive in a number of games that year. 2020 was the weird covid year but that team could have been better than 2-8. It seemed like our coach assumed the season was going to be canceled and didn't have the team prepared to start the season. Once that class left, we had very little talent and were outmatched in every game. It seems like there is some talent coming soon and hopefully we can be competitive in some EBC games. I know the "froshmore" team is playing pretty well. I admire the kids, they do play harder under Speakman than they have in the past. It seems like that have made positive strides in the weight room. The numbers are still low but better than the last few years. They have to keep kids from quitting and open enrolling to other schools. the only way to do that is to win some games.
 
Minerva's 2019 win over West Branch has to be near the top of the list of "real scores that would be unbelievable now" over the last ten years. Another candidate for inclusion would be St Thomas's Week 1 overtime victory over Gilmour, also in 2019. The Lancers were in D5 at the time, but they've now moved up to D3 and have a combined record of 22-5 since the start of the 2022 season, including a playoff victory last year over Madison and a near-upset against Aurora in Round 2. They are currently 4-0 and ranked #63 overall, and #11 in D3 by Fantastic50.

Things can, and do, change very quickly. Look at Manchester, Regional Finalist 3 straight years from 2017-2019, then their hall of fame coach retires, and they go 1-19 in 2022-2023. Now? 4-0, and the favorite to win their league. Can Minerva or Aquinas ever turn things around? Hard to say, but it is not inconceivable. My school went 9-31 when I was there, but now have two ten-win seasons in last three years. Look at Medina, with three trips to the Region 1 Finals in 4 years, no one saw that coming, except of course the Medina players. Same with New Bremen winning two state titles, who could have predicted that? No doubt there will be results five years from now that would sound ridiculous today.

The biggest hurdle for Minerva and STA might be mental. Do the players and coaches believe they can win on a weekly basis? If the answer is no, then you've already lost. But if the team goes into each week believing that they can and will prove everyone wrong, then there's always a chance

Different sport, but in the Spring of 2018, I was in a weight training class with one of Green's basketball players. The teacher (who is actually a football coach on Green's staff now) made a remark about how Green had never won a district title in basketball (which was true at the time). The player said, completely seriously, that Green was going to win one the following year, a claim that surprised the teacher (not without reason, since the 2018-19 team was set to be very young). Guess what happened the following March?
 
Sykotyk said:
National record for consecutive losses is believed to be 82. So neither team is even halfway there yet
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Not sure why the Internet says that but it's more than that and alot more. Red lake MN hasn't won a game since 1999. They have lost well over 200 games in a row.
 
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TigerBeast78 said:
Not sure why the Internet says that but it's more than that and alot more. Red lake MN hasn't won a game since 1999. They have lost well over 200 games in a row.
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Have to research it more. In 06 they didn't play at all. In 07 they played 1 game. In 05 they played 4 games before forfeiting the rest.

Also in that span they

were 9-man some years so not sure if that was listed in the other records I had found.

Edit:
08 didn't play
09 played 1 game
10 played 2
11 played 2
12 played 5
13 played 9
14 played 9
15 played 9
16 played 8
17 played 9
18 played 8
19 played 8
20 played 5
21 played 4
22 played 8
23 played 8
24 played 3 so far
 
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Sykotyk said:
Have to research it more. In 06 they didn't play at all. In 07 they played 1 game. In 05 they played 4 games before forfeiting the rest.

Also in that span they were 9-man some years so not sure if that was listed in the other records I had found.
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Yeah I just went and looked at a few years and I seen red lake some years were 0-2 or 0-3. If they weren't 11 man all them years that might be why they didn't count them
 
CrusaderZip0004 said:
The fact that Minerva is projected to win shows how far down the St Thomas Aquinas program has fallen. I know a lot of nice athletes that are alumni of Aquinas have children going to CCC now. Seems weird seeing some of these family names at CCC and their feeders.
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Yeah, my sister and brother-in-law both went to STA (as did I) and they're (hopefully) sending their kids to Central.

To be honest, I really do think that STA would benefit by going 8-man (like mentioned already). They can play Sebring and Chalker, and I think TCC should go 8-man as well (in addition to some of the Western Ohio 8-man teams).

Prediction: Minerva 34-12.
 
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