Russell ends football career in style, with Penn-Ohio MVP
By JAKE GLAVIES, jglavies@reviewonline.comArticle Photos
BELOIT - Though the rain at West Branch's Heacock Stadium stopped just before kickoff, Beaver Local product and Ohio quarterback Ethan Russell made it rain Friday in the Penn-Ohio Stateline Classic.
Passing for 169 yards and two scores while completing 7-of-14 passes, the signal caller not only earned MVP honors, but led his team to a 14-8 victory over Pennsylvania.
Russell took his stellar performance in stride, though.
At the beginning of the second half he sat on the Ohio bench, arms spread behind his teammates as two of his wide receivers talked over him.
He was calm and cool.
He was everything a quarterback should be.
And on his last night under center, he was a star.
This was the Russell's final high school football game, as he has opted to run track at Wheeling Jesuit rather than take to the gridiron.
The finality of his time hurling a pigskin wasn't lost on him.
"(I have) mixed feelings. I mean it's sad, it's my last game, but it's probably the best ending I could imagine," Russell said, while standing at the 50-yard line of Heacock Stadium with his helmet in one hand an MVP trophy in the other. "I know I'm going to miss it and everything, but four years of college football I don't know if my body could go through that. I'm not that big."
Though he unloaded on Pennsylvania through the air - with the majority of his yards coming in the first half - Russell was never known as a passing quarterback.
According to Ohio coach Bob Altenhof, he had all the tools to be a gunslinger.
"We played against Ethan and we know how good of an athlete he is and how good of a quarterback he is," the coach said, while standing outside the Ohio locker room. "I think the fact that he didn't throw it much at Beaver Local was more their offense than Ethan. Ethan throws the ball pretty well."
And on his second scoring pass of the game, he proved his coach right, hitting a wide open Jimmy Phillis for a 47-yard touchdown to give Ohio a 14-0 edge heading into halftime.
His first score came on an 18-yard toss to South Range's Charlie Lengyel in the first quarter.
With four years on the track ahead of him, Russell knows that nothing will ever be like playing under the bright lights of a football stadium.
But running is the future and getting a win over Pennsylvania is the present and according to the quarterback, he wouldn't have been able to have such a strong game without a lot of talent around him.
"I was surrounded by a lot of great players. Great wide receivers, good running backs, good line. Defense stepped it up," he said.
