By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

The Rootstown High School boys basketball team celebrated a program-wide historical milestone last week.

The Rovers’ 67-53 home victory over Wickliffe was the 900th boys basketball win all-time for the school.

They are the fifth program in Portage County history to hit the win milestone.

Only four other schools have more all-time wins:

   1. Windham, 1,203 wins

   2. Mogadore, 1,196

   3. Kent Roosevelt, 967

   4. Garfield, 931

Rootstown is 7-5 on the season and 2-3 in the Chagrin Valley Conference Valley Division, with at least nine more games on the schedule this season.

The team’s seven wins are already the most since the 2021-22 season. In that season, the Rovers finished 7-15 overall. The Rovers have not won more than seven games in a season since 2018-19 (14-10 overall).

BASKETBALL RPI UPDATE

The OHSAA’s high school basketball MaxPreps Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) rankings are now live on the OHSAA website.

The rankings update daily based on final scores reported to the MaxPreps database and the rankings are used to help seed teams for the postseason tournament.

This is the third season that the RPI data is used at the time of statewide tournament draws, which are scheduled for Feb. 8 (Divisions III-VII) and Feb. 15 (Divisions I-II), while the boys tournament draws are Feb. 15 (Divisions III-VII) and Feb. 22 (Divisions I-II).

Here is an updated look at the current rankings of Portage County’s teams:

BOYS BASKEBALL

Aurora (Division III): 34

Crestwood (Division V): 24

Field (Division IV): 26

Garfield (Division V): 27

Kent Roosevelt (Division III): 40

Mogadore (Division VI): 21

Ravenna (Division IV): 14

Rootstown (Division VI): 13

Southeast (Division V): 8

Streetsboro (Division IV): 15

Waterloo (Division VII): 15

Windham (Division VII): 22

GIRLS BASKETBALL

Aurora (Division III): 7

Crestwood (Division IV): 23

Field (Division IV): 25

Garfield (Division V): 15

Kent Roosevelt (Division III): 15

Mogadore (Division VI): 21

Ravenna (Division IV): 28

Rootstown (Division VI): 3

Southeast (Division V): 13

Streetsboro (Division IV): 6

Waterloo (Division VI): 34

Windham (Division VII): 21

WRESTLING CAREER WINS LIST

A school-by-school look at the career wins leaders for Portage County.

AURORA

Jarrod Brezovec, 172

Johnny Papesh, 170

Ty Mitch, 160

Dylan Fishback, 157

Andy Garr, 150

CRESTWOOD

Dylan Kager, 165

JP Wrobel, 161

Conner Nemec, 144

Cody Ryba, 144

Brett Szuhay, 140

FIELD

Cory Simpson, 168

TJ Fox, 141

Dallas McAmis, 134

LJ Riley, 105

GARFIELD

Logan Kissell, 169

Hunter Andel, 157

Keegan Sell, 155

Travis Herbert, 146

KENT ROOSEVELT

Steve Ricciardi, 117

Andrew Wallace, 105

Ricky Legg, 102

MOGADORE

Paul Skye, 176

Justin Chew, 152

Nick Skye, 150

Tyler Shellenbarger 138

Josh Tompkins, 130

RAVENNA

Matt Reedy, 168

Jimmy Holmes, 151

Andy Hampton 130

Ben Hampton, 124

Jason Lara, 124

ROOTSTOWN

Luke Sorboro, 190

Ryan Boyle, 182

Caleb Edwards, 180

Chris Langguth, 175

Niko Chilson, 168

SOUTHEAST

Cole Bailey, 149

Shelton Morris, 144

Hunter McPeak, 140

Brett Bailey, 128

Neil Bailey, 128

STREETSBORO

Dominic Carone, 160

Steve Blunk, 159

Cohen Klimak, 140

Donovan Paes, 128

Mark Wentz, 127

WATERLOO

Will Bolanz, 176

JJ Diven, 163

Justin Fox, 151

Nick Hermann, 146

Deagan Foster, 140

MAYLE SWIPES A NEW BASKETBALL RECORD

Crestwood sophomore Colton Mayle set a new single-game steals record during the Red Devils’ victory over Niles McKinley on Saturday.

Mayle had 13 steals to break the record that was previous held by Josh Jakacki that was originally set in 1994.