This Week in Benedictine Football

Week 6

September 29, 1978

Benedictine 7, Berea 3

Benedictine’s first game on artificial turf took place because of teachers’ strikes in the Lakewood and Cleveland school systems forcing cancellations of scheduled games.

Benedictine was to play West Tech and Berea was to play Lakewood.

Arrangements were made by Benedictine school officials with Berea earlier in the week to play on September 29, 1978 at Baldwin-Wallace College’s Finnie Stadium.

Even on such short notice, the game turned out to be a classic.

The Berea News Sun called it, “one of the hardest-hitting games in Finnie Stadium history.” Tim Rogers of the old Cleveland Press wrote that it was “a good, old-fashioned, hit’em-into-next-week football game.”

After a scoreless first half, Berea took a 3-0 lead on a 25-yard field goal by Judd Groza in the third.

With five minutes left in the game, Berea was facing a punting situation on fourth down. 

The plan of Bengals coach Augie Bossu was to attempt to block the punt. “We were going for the ball,” he said. “Our intention was to block the punt and get good field position. Time was becoming a factor.”

Bossu continued, “We had no return on.”

Benedictine failed to block that punt but the result left the Bengals faithful cheering madly.

Bengals back Dale Horton fielded the Berea punt on his own 10, avoided a couple of tacklers, and headed for the right sideline, where he went virtually untouched for the game-winning touchdown.  If that were not enough heroics, Horton also kicked the extra point to give the Bengals a 7-3 victory that lifted his team a 3-1 record.

Bossu was proud of his team’s response to the punt return. “The rest of the kids were able to react quickly and give him some help along the way.”

It was one big play that made all of the difference on a night that belonged to the defense.

Both teams were kept under 100 yards of offense.

Benedictine gained 29 yards rushing and 36 yards passing for a total of 65. Berea had 58 yards rushing and 34 yards passing for a total of 92.

Berea coach Tom Madzy said, “Our inability to score was not the fault of our offense. All the credit has to be given to Benedictine’s defense.”

The Bengals lost two fumbles and the Braves lost one. Rogers wrote, “the fumbles occurred because of tackling that bordered on the ferocious.” 

Rogers singled out several Bengals for their play on defense including Tony Pletka, Dave Marshall, Ted Chiudioni and Joe Mincek.

Berea had a dream season moving all the way to the Class AAA (large-school) state championship game losing to Cincinnati Princeton 12-10.

The Bengals finished with a disappointing 4-6 record. That record is deceiving because the team lost its last four games by a total of nine points.

Rules at the time did not allow Benedictine to reap the rewards of the big win over Berea. Only games that were on record before the season began were counted towards the state playoffs.  Those computer points from the victory over Berea would have changed the course of the season for the Bengals and would have gone a long way toward a shot at the state Class AA playoffs.

Berea’s Tom Madzy was chosen as the Plain Dealer Coach of the Year. In the accompanying article, Madzy reflected on the close loss to Benedictine. “I told the kids in the locker room after the game that we were a better team for playing the game (against Benedictine) and events proved it.”

NOTES:

-Benedictine’s Dave Marshall later played at Eastern Michigan and spent the 1984 season as a linebacker for the Cleveland Browns.

-Berea’s Judd Groza is the son of the legendary Cleveland Browns place-kicker Lou (the Toe) Groza.

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Wally Mieskoski ’71

Benedictine Football Historian