By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

Standing near the 30-yard line at Nordonia High School’s Boliantz Stadium on Saturday night, a snow squall engulfed myself, Mogadore football head coach Matt Adorni and reporter Jonah Rosenblum during our postgame interview.
Kirtland had just eliminated Mogadore in the Division VI, Region 21 championship.
The wind was blustery and cold. The snowflakes were the size of nickels. The visibility was limited at best.
Everybody was running for cover and warmth.
The three of us stood on the turf talking football.
I slid my notebook into the cover of my jacket to ensure that my notes were remain readable by the time I got home.
“You guys get out of here. Get out of this. You need to get home before the roads get bad,” Adorni told us.
He was right.
And like coachable Mogadore football players, Jonah and I both listened.
The sudden wintry outburst made it one of the most unique end-of-season interviews I think I have ever done.
Fitting, really.
Because you could argue that the 2022 Mogadore football team was one of the more unique groups the program has had in recent history.
At the beginning of the season, talk inside of town, preseason predictors, computer rankings and more maybe thought that this would be the group that fell short of the Wildcats’ lofty expectations.
It wasn’t that the thought was Mogadore would suffer through the 2022 season, but just that maybe they did not have enough to go 10-0. They had enough to make the playoffs, but maybe they were not going to make the deep postseason run everyone dreams of.
It wasn’t that the town was not going to support the team, but just that maybe they were looking at the upcoming season with what they thought to be realistic ideas.
But once the season started, wins were followed by wins.
Players, both new faces and veterans, stepped up to elevate play at positions that were thought to be weaknesses.
The undefeated season once thought to be out of reach by some became another chapter in the program’s rich history.
Of course, having a multi-faceted and true competitor in Mason Williams helps.
And Williams deserves a lot of credit for how he played this season and was undeniably a catalyst to the team’s overall success.
But the 2022 Wildcats were so much more than just Williams.
They were a team. One that believed in themselves and authored a memorable season worth being proud of before running into the juggernaut that is Kirtland.
“We have been on the same field as state-championship teams before and that is a state-championship caliber team,” Adorni said as we stood in the middle of a blizzard.
His assessment is accurate, but the fact that it took a team as dominant as Kirtland (68 wins in its last 69 games) to knock out his team is a testament to this year’s Wildcats and the hard work they put in throughout the off-season and from week to week.
Congratulations on an amazing season. It was a joy to cover.