Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
The Eastwood football team graduated a deep and talented senior class and will have to replace eight starters on each side of the ball, but the goal is still the same — to win the conference.
The Eagles went 11-2 overall last year and advanced to the Division V regional semifinal. Over the last two seasons, they’ve finished a combined 12-2 in Northern Buckeye Conference play. Both of those losses have been to league champion, Oak Harbor.
“If the process that we have in place for these kids is successful, then our goals shouldn't change every year,” third-year head coach Sam Cotterman said. “Even though we lost a huge, special class in those 16 seniors, now is the time for some other guys to step up and fill those shoes. We (always) talk about all those players that came before us and all the work that they put in just to carry on the standard at Eastwood, and the league championship is still top on our goal list.”
Gone are guys like Kevin Lewis, who toted the ball 140 times for a team-best 820 yards and 16 touchdowns. Andre Lewis and Dayquan Oliver, who combined for 1,621 yards and 21 touchdowns, also graduated. Same with Brock Messinger, who scored four touchdowns as a receiver.
That group represented four of the team’s top five in all-purpose yards, accumulating a combined 3,663 yards.
The defensive side of the ball gets worse as 10 of the team’s top 12 players in total tackles have graduated.
“It’s tough when you lose 16 seniors like that, especially at a smaller school, and they were all such great kids and great athletes,” Cotterman said.
“That's why we're looking to see how our process is going here with the JV schedule and what we're asking the kids to do in the offseason and making sure we're getting them reps in those younger years. These kids that were freshmen and sophomores when I got here — who are now juniors — we need them to contribute. It's gonna be a big telling year for how our process is going. If those kids step in and we have a successful year, then I think we're heading on the right track.”
Cam Schumaker, who led the team tackles with 71 and finished second in rushing yards with 204 last year, returns as a junior linebacker while also shifting to receiver this year. He led the Eagles with 19 touchdowns last season.
“We’re trying to find our best group because we have to replace all of them from last year,” Cotterman said. “Cam is a receiver, but we'll also bring him in and do some fancy stuff to get the ball in his hands. He's the only guy in those skill positions we got coming back.”
Cotterman said the Eagles have a few kids battling it out at receiver, including guys like Zach Mullholand, Bryce Coger, Landon Weemes, and Edmund Opfer.
“Zach had some injuries early on in his sophomore and junior years, so the midway point to three-fourths of the season last year was really him getting back into football,” Cotterman said. “He missed some time, but we're going to need him to step up and be a player.”
Opfer, meanwhile, is a potential breakout talent.
“He's shown glimpses of being one of our best receivers as an incoming sophomore,” Cotterman said. “He did a great job in the weight room in the offseason. He played basketball, and he ran track. He got a lot faster and thicker. He’s doing a good job at receiver right now, and we've put him in a couple different spots.”
Brayden Luidhardt, who is the team’s backup quarterback to his brother Drew, is also getting some time at receiver at camp.
“He's too good of a competitor and athlete to not try to find somewhere on the field where he could be successful,” Cotterman said.
Hunter Lauer, a tight end who missed most of last season due to a broken forearm, has moved to offensive tackle as the team looks to replace four of the five starters there. He had nine receptions for 174 yards in 2024.
“He's doing a great job there,” Cotterman said. “He weighs about 260 pounds and did a really good job in the offseason putting on weight for us.”
Two-year starter Jack Sensenig also returns on the offensive line. He’s the only starter back as he’ll join Lauer and three other new starters.
With Lauer’s injury last year and position switch this year, Brady Ramlow is being looked at as a key contributor at tight end.
“I call him Rambo,” Cotterman said. “He is a returning letterman who got some reps and special teams plays last year. He's had a great offseason.”
Two other key seniors will be quarterback Drew Luidhardt, who threw for 3,058 yards and 37 touchdowns last year en route to Second Team All-Ohio recognition while also finishing with 34 tackles on defense, and Braden Dix, who hasn’t gotten much varsity time yet but is someone Cotterman said will be needed to step up.
Luidhardt replaced an injured Kadyn Donnell in the first game last year, and took over the role the rest of the way.
“He had to go in and had a heck of a game, and he continued that throughout his junior year,” Cotterman said. “We're expecting him to be a leader on the field.”
Despite all the personnel changes, Cotterman feels that one of his team’s strengths will be their knowledge of the offensive concepts in the spread as he enters his third season.
“That first year implementing the spread, it was pretty difficult even in those first couple weeks where we were just very basic in our passing scheme,” he said. “Then we had a huge jump last year, and we're already past that this year. The kids overall are just learning the schemes. We're not making any missed assignments. We're not making mistakes.”
Overall, as Cotterman said, this year will be about seeing if the team’s offseason program is moving in the right direction.
“I'm excited to see how this year goes,” he said. “We were very fortunate my first two years, where we had basically the same group of guys, minus a few. My first year we had nine seniors, and the junior class was pretty big.
“We had that big junior class for those two years. Now we're back to the point where we have six seniors this year, and it's going to be a big tell for us to see if what we're doing in the offseason is working — to see how well these kids do who are going to need to step in and play right away, and then figuring out what we need to tweak or change if they aren’t doing well.”
