THE RETURN OF THE EYE

By: Ella Fowler, Kelsey Bruzek, Tyler Elzholz, and Jaiden Basinger

January 5, 2021

With the Brooklyn City School District going remote this past December, winter sports were put on hold. The teams were not allowed to participate in any type of competition, including practice. 

As of now, Brooklyn sports are back and ready for action. Each team has set its goals for the year and is ready to compete. 

Scott Urig, girls’ basketball coach, stated that his plan is to control the controllables and get better one day at a time.

“Just like any other year, we play the games on our schedule.  We control the controllables,” said Urig.

The girls’ basketball philosophy is E+R=O. “We cannot control the events that happen.  We can control our response to the event.  Our response to the event helps to shape the outcome.  We control the controllables.”

Switching to wrestling, home workouts, running, and staying in shape are the things that Coach Ray Mass is doing to keep his wrestlers in shape. 

“{A} shortened season is not good for the wrestlers, so trying to keep in shape is important because with going into no tournaments where you can wrestle up to five matches a day keeps you in shape, and right now, that’s not happening,” stated Mass.

The first wrestling match is at Beachwood High School at 6:00 on Thursday, January 7.  This is a quad meet, and as of now, there will be no spectators allowed.

Coach Jerrod Karl of the boys’ basketball team plans to help his players succeed by focusing on conditioning and their team’s strengths. 

“The pause took away a lot of instructional time for learning the plays. We are focusing on our athleticism and length to create turnovers and fast break points early in the season. As we continue to practice, we are trying to catch up on development of the playbook and work on timing of the plays,” an optimistic Karl stated.

Although the season that is going to be played is different than usual due to COVID-19 protocols, it is necessary to keep everyone as safe as possible. 

“The shortened season is unfortunate, but given the circumstances, we should be happy to play at all. We were eager to face some of the non-conference teams we scheduled this year, but we have unfinished business within the conference. At this point, the players seem excited just to see another team and compete,” said Karl.

With all of the uncertainty and pushed-back start time, Karl is optimistic about what is to come. 

He said that “The players have done an excellent job with all the adversity they have faced. The pause has set us back, but our goals stay the same.”

Finally, the hockey team will continue to practice and play intra-squad games in order to stay sharp until the time comes for them play an opponent from another school.

The Greater Cleveland High School Hockey League disbanded the conference format, and teams are on their own to schedule games throughout the year. 

While this greatly limits the amount of opponents, it does allow for Coach Mike Wrost to pick and choose opponents and game times.  This will help in managing pandemic-related issues for the remainder of the season.

“Even if we only get to play a limited number of games, we hope to play in order to salvage a season for the seniors.  Morale on the team has been great, and the senior class has remained positive,” stated Wrost.

We wish our Winter sports teams good luck as they begin their new seasons. The Hurricane family is excited to watch each team succeed and bring home some wins.

Go Canes!

By: Ella Fowler, Kelsey Bruzek, Tyler Elzholz, and Jaiden Basinger

December 15, 2020

Last night, the Cleveland Browns were looking to create more divisional separation from the Baltimore Ravens. Unfortunately, they found themselves on the short-end of the scoreboard in a Monday Night Football classic, falling to the Ravens 47-42.

In the first quarter, the Browns were able to get a jump on the Ravens early with a Nick Chubb touchdown run. However, the Ravens did not hesitate in responding with Lamar Jackson faking a handoff and running it into the end zone for a touchdown to knot the game at 7-7.

In the second quarter, after a Browns’ missed field goal, the Ravens answered the Browns defensive mistakes with another touchdown run, this time from Gus Edwards. The Browns then put an impressive drive together, capped by another Chubb touchdown run, tying the score at 14-14.  After a couple of changes in possession, Jackson rushed for another touchdown, giving the Ravens a 21-14 halftime lead.

To begin the third quarter, the Ravens once again found themselves in the Browns’ end zone for another seven points, expanding their lead to 28-14. 

In their next possession, the Browns responded with Kareem Hunt scoring to cut the deficit to eight points (after a missed PAT by Cody Parkey). Another Ravens touchdown (but a blocked PAT) gave them a two-touchdown lead heading into the fourth quarter.

This is when the game got very interesting. Trailing 34-20, Baker Mayfield threw a strike to Rashard Higgins resulting in a wide-open touchdown. Instead of going for one, Coach Kevin Stefanski went for two points and converted, trimming the deficit to 34-28. After getting the ball back and an ensuing long drive, Mayfield ran it in from five yards out to give the Browns a 35-34 lead with six minutes remaining. 

Nearing the two-minute mark, the Ravens marched down the field and scored on a pass from Jackson to Marquise Brown (plus a two-point conversion) giving the Ravens the lead once again, 42-35. In less than a minute, the Browns responded yet again with a Mayfield 22-yard pass to Hunt, who dove into the endzone for the score.  After a good PAT, the game was tied at 42-42.

Even with just a minute remaining, Jackson worked his magic and drove the Ravens into Browns’ territory to set up Justin Tucker’s game-winning, 55-yard field goal with only two seconds remaining. {Note: The extra two points came from a lateral-crazy safety as time expired.}

Disappointing loss?  Yes!  However, the Browns showed fight and offensive firepower, two traits that have not been seen much in the past 20 years.

Even with the defeat, the Browns’ record stands at 9-4, and they still have a really good chance to end their playoff drought, which goes all the way back to 2002.  

Some other good news includes Nick Chubb being voted the team’s 2020 Ed Block Courage Award recipient and Myles Garrett winning the team’s 2020 Walter Payton Man of the Year Award. 

The Browns are back in action this Sunday (December 20) as they travel to New York to face the Giants.  Kickoff is at 8:20 p.m. 

Go Browns!

By: Ella Fowler, Kelsey Bruzek, Tyler Elzholz, and Jaiden Basinger

December 8, 2020

With the season right around the corner, the varsity wrestling team is ready to get on the mat and show the work that they put in this past offseason. Leading the team is head coach Ray Mass with assistant coach Mike Keough.  

Finishing last season pretty well, the expectations are high, and those involved in the program believe that this season could be a special one.

Senior Jimmy Gray believes that this team has the ability to flourish this year. 

“During practices, everybody shows up every day and does their best at every practice; they’re gonna shine on the mat pretty soon,” said Gray.

He added, “Knowing that I have the opportunity to come back off an injury last season keeps me focused to do my best and have one last year with my wrestling coach that I have had since I was five. As a leader, I’m not pushing to make everyone a state champion wrestler, but I am pushing them to become better kids and soon-to-be adults.” 

Due to covid, the wrestling team has a number of wrestlers who did not go out this year in fear of getting sick, so they only have seven wrestlers at this time, as a lot of other schools are having the same difficulty. Coach Mass is not worried about the number of wrestlers on the team because he believes that the group is skilled enough to go out there on the mat and show what Brooklyn wrestling is about.

He explained that all of the returning wrestlers are experienced and wrestled in pee wee, middle school, and high school.

Mass is also high on junior Sofia Collins: “She has been wrestling around with the boys in the wrestling room, so that will make her a lot tougher this year.”

Mass said that he is expecting many newcomers coming in with experience to win a lot of matches this year and the upcoming years. He said it also helps having Keough on the staff.

He stated, “We have a new assistant coach, Mike Keough, who was a two-time state-qualifier for Brooklyn in 2002-2003, as well as a wrestling for John Carroll for four years. That’s one improvement. We also need to improve with weight lifting on a regular basis, so we’ve been doing a lot of that this year.”

In the upcoming years, Mass will focus on trying to get more kids to come out at all levels. 

“It’s a brutal sport and is not for everybody; that’s why the numbers are low at times. It takes four-to-five years to build a program, and we are starting from scratch. We just have to get the word out.”

Coach Mass and Coach Keough are looking forward to getting the season underway. 

The Hurricane family is excited to see the team succeed and wish them the best of luck.