Kerscher breaks record as Walsh football smashes NDCL

Home cooking starts now for the Walsh Jesuit football team after Ryan Kerscher shattered the school record for passing yards in a game when the Warriors opened Crown Conference action with a resounding 52-23 victory over Notre-Dame Cathedral Latin in Chardon.

Kerscher had some great long passes in the win, but he also threw darts on crossing patters, had roll-out completions and moved up in the pocket to buy more time on his pass connections.

Incredibly, Kerscher completed 20 of 29 passes for a record 385 yards and five touchdown passes.

Matt Natale previously held the Warrior yardage record at 305 yards.

In addition, Kerscher also scrambled when he needed to and made positive yards rather than a sack. He also had a nice quarterback draw run and finished with four carries for 58 yards.

What Warrior head coach Nick Alexander loved to see was that Kerscher threw the deep passes well, didn’t make mistakes and got everyone involved.

Five different Warrior receivers caught touchdown passes from Kerscher at Lions Stadium!

“Ryan has really worked on his touch on his deep ball,” said Alexander. “It has gotten better and better each week. His improvement from week to week in his accuracy has been great to see.”

“We thought we could use our speed on the outside to our advantage,” added Alexander on a few of Kerscher’s bombs – including a 90-yard rainbow touchdown pass on a seam route to wide open senior speedster Trey Bell.

Making its fifth road trip in seven games this fall, Walsh moved to 5-2 and will close out the regular season at home with league games against Mentor Lake Catholic and Parma Padua Franciscan Oct. 14, plus the regular season finale Oct. 21 against rival Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary.

Senior wide receiver Quinton Walton was sensational in the victory.

Walton had a career best 83-yard catch and run touchdown and had four receptions for 111 yards. Bell amassed five catches for 159 yards and the score.

Justin Bremner, a senior running back who had done a good job of carrying the work load, had 21 carries for 89 yards with TD runs of eight yards and one yard.

Walsh, averaging 44.9 points a contest, has one of Ohio’s deepest corps of senior receivers in Bell, Walton, Gabe Gardner, Erik Polousky, Nick Herbele, Gavin Gubanyor, and Matt Serdinak.

“Seven different guys caught passes and that was awesome to see,” pointed out Alexander.

Polousky totaled three receptions for 38 yards and had a 14-yard touchdown catch. Gardner had a 15-yard score with three catches for 30 yards and Herbele added a pair of receptions for 17 yards, including a 3-yard touchdown.

The Walsh defense did a great job against NDCL (2-5, 0-1) and held Burke Buell in check fairly well, but he did do some damage later in the second half.

One of the finest backs in northeast Ohio, Buell did break loose for a 63-yard touchdown burst up the middle in the second half and also added a third scoring run later in the game against the Warriors.

“Our defense was led by Josh Grogan who has been a great leader on that side of the ball,” expressed Alexander.

Losing first-team All-Ohio linebacker Kasey Kish as well as other key starters to graduation, Walsh has worked hard on defense and continues to make strides.

Grogan is a senior at the hybrid safety-linebacker position while sophomore Declan Norton had an interception for the Warriors. Senior placekicker Cooper Kirda made 6-of-6 extra point kicks and booted a 28-yard field goal.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Kerscher leads Walsh Jesuit football to rout of NDCL