Olivia Klanac's record tops list of local sports stories of 2025

Longtime Highland girls and boys tennis coach Lisa Reynolds recorded her 500th career victory as the Hornets girls program won its 10th straight Suburban League American Conference title. The Brunswick girls swimming team captured Greater Cleveland Conference and Division I district crowns while advancing three relays to the state meet. Buckeye's Dion Sams won a Division II indoor state title in the triple jump and finished fifth in the long jump at the D-I outdoor meet, while Medina's Anna Schork took fifth on the balance beam at the state gymnastics meet. Just as impressive, the Buckeye girls soccer team won the first district title in program history. The Medina and Highland girls teams duplicated the feat, as did the Medina boys squad. All were very noteworthy accomplishments, as were a number of other feats, but they didn't quite crack the list of the top 10 Medina County sports stories of 2025, as selected by The Gazette sports staff. Feel free to agree, disagree or rearrange the order of this always subjective list, but here we go: 1. Long 'Liv' Klanac The Medina County career scoring record for girls basketball had stood for almost 25 years, but on Feb. 5, 2025, Medina's Olivia Klanac broke it. With a 3-pointer in the fourth quarter of a 57-26 Greater Cleveland Conference win over Euclid, the 5-foot-9 shooting guard overtook Buckeye's Tanya Ross, who scored 1,688 points from 1996 to 2000. "It is really cool to see my name up there," said Klanac, now a freshman on scholarship at Coastal Carolina. "Overall, I'm just out here playing and these things have been given to me by God. I am so grateful." A first-team D-I All-Ohio pick as a junior and senior and two-time Gazette MVP, Klanac finished her illustrious four-year career with 1,837 points and led the Bees to the regional finals in 2024 and regional semis in 2025. Klanac, who also set a county record with 202 career 3-pointers, was a four-time All-Gazette pick, a two-time Northeast Inland D-I District Player of the Year and did not miss a game in her career while leading Medina to a 75-28 record (.728). Klanac's 23.7 scoring average as a senior was a county record as well, highlighting a very good season in the area that also saw the Wadsworth and Highland girls teams reach the regional semifinals in D-II and D-III, respectively, and the Hornets' Kennedy Morgan and Cloverleaf's Evie Barth top 1,000 career points. On the boys side, Brunswick's Trey Drexler topped 1,000 points and, barring injury, has a solid shot of breaking the all-time county scoring record of 1,842 points set by Highland's Rob Wininger from 1989-93. Like Drexler, Cloverleaf's Marty Moran topped 1,000 career points in the 2025 calendar year. 2. Three perfect 10s Evidence exists that high school football was first played in the county in 1894, but 2025 was the first time three teams — Highland, Wadsworth and Buckeye — compiled 10-0 regular seasons. Now if it wasn't for those doggone Avon and Rocky River teams. Led by Gazette Fall Coach of the Year Mike Gibbons, the Hornets finished 12-1, won another SL American title and reached the D-II, Region 6 final for the third straight year, where they lost to Avon for the third straight time, this time 36-19. Led by Cleveland Browns Coach of the Year Justin Todd, the Grizzlies went 11-1, captured the SL National crown and advanced to the D-II, Region 6 semifinals for the second straight year, where they were eliminated 42-21 by, ahem, Avon, which has won two state championships in a row after finishing as runner-up in 2023. Led by the dean of county football coaches, Greg Dennison, the Bucks set a school record for wins while going 11-1, captured their second straight Cleveland West Conference title and advanced to the D-III, Region 10 semifinals before dropping a 48-41 thriller to league foe Rocky River, which they beat in a 35-27 thriller late in the regular season. Cloverleaf made history as well, recording the first playoff victory in program history by downing Bay 42-35 in an explosive and memorable D-IV, Region 14 quarterfinal, while Medina upset GCC foe Strongsville 28-25 in the D-I, Region 1 quarterfinals after losing to the Mustangs 42-14 in the regular season. 3. Evans to NFL The San Francisco 49ers' Kyle Juszczyk, a 2009 Cloverleaf graduate who recently set a league record for fullbacks by being named to his 10th Pro Bowl, now has county company in the NFL. Tight end Mitchell Evans, who graduated from Wadsworth in 2021 and went on to star at Notre Dame, was selected in the fifth round (163rd overall) of the 2025 NFL Draft by the Carolina Panthers. The 6-foot-5, 258-pounder currently has 18 catches for 166 yards (9.2-yard average) and two touchdowns in his rookie season. The county is almost certain to add a third NFL player in 2026, when Penn State quarterback and 2022 Medina grad Drew Allar, whose senior season ended due to a broken ankle, is expected to be drafted. Virginia Tech guard Tomas Rimac (Brunswick) could be the fourth. Evans and Allar are not strangers. Notre Dame downed Penn State 27-24 in the College Football Playoff semifinals last season before falling 34-23 to Ohio State in the national championship game. 4. Olympic dreams Ella Nicholson doesn't feel like she has the weight of the world on her shoulders, but even if she did the 2025 Medina graduate could probably lift it. Now a freshman on scholarship at Lindenwood University in Missouri, Nicholson will compete for a college weightlifting national championship in April after a tremendously successful year. At the Pan American Junior World Championships in Cuba in March, the 5-foot-6 Nicholson won gold medals in the clean and jerk and combined total while adding a silver in the snatch in the 77-kilogram weight class (170 pounds). Two months later she went to Peru for the International Weightlifting Federation Junior World Championships and duplicated those results, then added gold medals in all three lifts at the junior nationals in June. In August, Nicholson traveled to Paraguay for the Pan Am Games and won gold in the snatch and silver in the clean and jerk and combined total. In early December she took first in all three lifts in the junior division and a gold and two silvers in the open class at the American Open Finals in Daytona Beach, Fla. Nicholson then went straight to Paris to compete in a French weightlifting all-star event and swept gold in all three lifts. Now with personal-best lifts of 114 kilograms in the snatch (251 pounds), 135 in the clean and jerk (297) and 245 combined meet total (540), Nicholson remains on track to represent the United States at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. 5. Not Dunne yet Gracie Dunne's goal as a 15-year-old Highland sophomore was to finish in the top 10 at the D-I girls state bowling tournament. She ended up finishing second and was likely one unlucky shot from winning a state championship. After finishing 40th as a freshman, two-time Gazette MVP Dunne rolled a 676 three-game series (259-203-214) at HPL Bowling Center to finish 23 pins behind Bellefontaine senior Haylee Yelton, who shot a 699 series that included a 265 in her final game. Having struck in the seventh, eighth and ninth frames, Dunne had a chance to strike out for a 239 in her second game. She hit the pocket but left a 7-10 split. "I was sad for the 10th frame 7-10," she said. "It was a good ball. I was thinking I was going to strike again (on the next ball) for a five-bagger." Dunne came back to shoot a solid 214 in her final game. Yelton's big third game gave her the state title, but Dunne was more than happy with her performance. "When I woke up, I felt good," she said. "I wasn't nervous at all. I felt like I was going to do well." The first-team All-Ohio pick, a two-hander who bowls on the Highland boys team in the regular season, highlighted a great season for the county. The Wadsworth boys and girls teams won Suburban League crowns, with the girls finishing 12th out of 16 teams at the state tournament, while the Buckeye girls team won the North Shore Bowling Conference Division I title. 6. State champs again Under the direction of coach Mike Tecco, Buckeye won the Ohio High School Wrestling Coaches Association D-II State Duals to capture its third crown in four years. The Bucks downed Wauseon 43-32 in the final, nipped Steubenville 33-31 in the semifinals and routed Plain City Jonathan Alder 60-17 in the quarterfinals, with Blake Bartos (132, 138 pounds), Austin McKee (138, 144) and Justin Augustine (215) going 3-0 in those matches. At the Ohio High School Athletic Association state tournament, the county went without an individual champion for the first time since 2015 but still displayed its tremendous talent. Bartos, a D-II state champion in 2024, finished second at 132, while McKee was third at 138. In D-I, Highland's Brandon Bickerton (3rd, 113) and Austin Bickerton (4th, 120) led the way, with Wadsworth's Kolt Mellon (6th, 138), Jack Dinwiddie (7th, 144) and Brody Grimm (7th, 175) also earning spots on the podium. In the girls division, Black River's Taylor Owen was seventh at 145 and Brunswick's Marisa McCartin was eighth at 125. 7. Going the distance Led by a fourth-place D-II finish by the Wadsworth girls team, county runners had a great day at the state cross country meet at Fortress Obetz and Memorial Park. The Grizzlies, who were led by a 10th-place finish from junior All-Ohio runner and two-time Gazette MVP Maggie Gerschutz, also featured Ella Dolgowicz (36th), Natalie Buzard (55th), Kyleigh Friedl (56th) and a less than 100% Cami Ross (142nd) while finishing with 221 points. Watterson won with 158. It was Wadsworth's third straight state appearance after finishing eighth in 2024 and fifth in 2023, but there were plenty of other standouts. After recovering from a torn labrum in his hip, Cloverleaf senior Caleb Neville finished 18th in the D-II boys race to earn All-Ohio honors for the third straight season, while Highland's Katie Schuler (16th) and Olivia Keough (17th) earned the same distinction in the D-II girls race as the Hornets finished 12th as a team. Medina's Alexis Warnement was 21st in the D-I girls race, earning her second-team All-Ohio honors. The top 20 runners in D-I made the first team. 8. Green machines Led by two-time Gazette MVP Elizabeth Coleman and veteran coach Mary Becker, the Highland girls golf program added to its lengthy state tournament history, while Brunswick's Ellie Gonzalez-Ribble started her state legacy and Buckeye's Luca Violi finished his high school career at the event at Firestone Country Club. By placing fifth in D-I with a two-day score of 654, which was 30 shots back of team champion Dublin Jerome, the Hornets ran their string of top-five finishes to six. Coleman, a senior who was tied for second after the first round, finished eighth at 8-over-par 148 (73-75), one stroke ahead of sophomore Gonzalez-Ribble, who shot 75-74 in her first state tournament appearance. Both earned second-team All-Ohio honors, while Violi, the only county boy to qualify, finished in a four-way tie for 46th out of 72 golfers with a two-day total of 18-over 162 (81-81). Gonzalez-Ribble was one of just three non-seniors to finish in the top eight in the girls field, while Violi won a five-golfer playoff to earn one of the final two individual spots out of the Pine Hills District. Coleman, who finished second at the state tournament as a junior, set county records for nine-hole average (35.19) and lowest score against par with a 9-under 63 at Fox Meadow Country Club as a senior. Highland, which was second in the team race after the first round, also counted scores from Kate Vickerman (159), Mirabella Shelton (172), Miley Tylicki (175) and Allie Miller (182). 9. Rain, rain go away It took two days to finish, but the Medina baseball team fell to 0-3 in regional championship games when it lost 3-2 to Perrysburg in a weather-delayed D-I, Region 1 final at Thurman Munson Stadium in Canton. The game was scheduled to start at 5 p.m. on a Thursday, but that didn't happen because the D-IV regional final, which was scheduled to begin at 2 on the turf field at Thurman Munson Stadium, didn't get going until 2:34, had a 1-hour, 2-minute weather delay and didn't end until 5:31. The Medina-Perrysburg start was pushed to 6:30, but that was soon changed to 7:30 due to inclement weather. With thunder and lightning still present, as well as the occasional downpour, the contest didn't begin until 8:42. The Bees quickly pushed across two runs in the bottom of the first, but Perrysburg tied the score in a rainy top of the third that featured a hit batter, two walks and a two-run double. With Medina coming to the plate in the bottom half, umpires delayed play at 9:38 p.m. The game was then quickly postponed until 6 p.m. the following day despite vehement protests from Bees coach Mark Kelly and athletic director Todd Hodkey, who argued the weather was no worse in the bottom of the third than it was in the top half of the inning. When play resumed Friday, Perrysburg scored an unearned run in the fifth and the Medina bats dried up as much as the weather had. The Bees (24-6), who also reached the regional finals in 2017 and 2023, were bidding to join Wadsworth (1954), Buckeye (1975, 1977), Brunswick (1988), Black River (1991) and Highland (2018) as county teams to reach the state semifinals. No county team has appeared in a state championship game. 10. Oh, so close The Wadsworth volleyball team nearly duplicated its 2024 state semifinal appearance, falling 25-14, 22-25, 25-22, 23-25, 15-11 to eventual state champion Avon in a thrilling marathon match in the D-II, Region 6 championship. Coached by Allyson Wines, the Grizzlies (24-2) got a record-setting performance from three-time Gazette MVP and Robert Morris recruit Lauren Decker, who amassed a county regional-record 31 kills in her final match, but could not prevent their 17-match winning streak from being snapped. The Grizzlies, who won their fourth straight SL National crown, also got an outstanding performance from Ohio University recruit Rowan Kelly, who finished with 10 kills, 42 assists, 11 digs and four blocks despite playing the final two sets with a broken right ring finger. Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4046 or rnoland@medina-gazette.com.