By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

Rootstown High School’s Charlie Voth became the winningest soccer coach in Portage County history on Monday with the Rovers’ 9-0 win over Warren JFK.

Voth, who has coached the Rovers’ boys soccer program since 2001, now has 262 career wins, which surpasses the 261 wins of Southeast High School girls soccer coach Dean Dunlavy, who retired after the 2025 season.

Voth’s career record is now 262-152-39.

Voth played football and wrestled at Firestone High School, where he graduated from in 1972. After graduation, he was drafted into the Army and was a specialist in the 42nd General Hospital in Valley Forge, Pa., in a one-floor facility that was made completely of wood. He helped treat POWs that had returned stateside from North Korea.

Voth’s coaching career was actually jumpstarted by his sister, who was working at a local YMCA and needed help. It resulted in Voth becoming an assistant gymnastics coach and his career as an athletic mentor had officially launched.

He began coaching soccer after the sport was introduced to him by friends, and he began playing at a Hungarian Club. Voth is quick to admit that he “knew nothing at all” about the sport at first, but it soon took a strong hold on him.

“Soccer is like a chess game. It is like a dance,” Voth said. “There are power moves and the amount of work players put into the game, people just don’t understand. Everyone moves and you just haver to get after it with a hard work ethic if you want to play the game the right way.”

He was added onto the staff at Cuyahoga Heights for a year, then he spent two years as an assistant on the Green High School staff before Voth was hired as the Firestone High School girls varsity coach, which he held for seven seasons before coming to Rootstown.

VOLLEYBALL MILESTONE AT MOGADORE

Mogadore High School junior volleyball standout Emma Butler was recently recognized for her 1,000th career assist.

TITLE TIME FOR AURORA

The Aurora High School volleyball team secured at least a share of the Suburban League American Conference championship last Tuesday with a three-game sweep over Barberton.

The Greenmen have now won the league title in three of the last four years (2023, 2025 and 2026).

GOALS FOR GENTILLE

Aurora High School senior boys soccer standout Cameron Gentille reached a scoring milestone during last Tuesday’s 3-0 win over Copley.

Gentille scored his 50th career goal and added another one later in the game to move into third place in the program’s all-time career goals list behind Nate Palmer (101 goals) and (current coach) Louis Kastelic (62 goals).