Carriero, Renfro Lead Hornets to Victory
By AlAn KornspAn sports@KArlovecmediA com
Senior Vince Carriero dropped 24 points, while junior Lucas Ren fro added 19, as the Hornets boys basketball team defeated the Wick liffe Blue Devils, 78-69, Dec. 18 at Kirtland High School.
In a fast-paced, high-scoring first half, the Hornets started strong by going on a 7-0 run.
Going into the second quarter up 21-15, the Hornets extended their lead to 46-34 heading into halftime.
After intermission, the Blue Devils came out strong and cut the
with
Coffee with Council is Saturday, January 25 10-11 a.m., at Kirtland City Hall. For more information, contact Joe Smolic at 440-487-8984 or JSmolic@ kirtlandohio.com
Kirtland PD Closes Out 2024 with New Hire
stAff report
Kirtland Police Department snagged the last available free agent to add to its roster in December — police academy graduate Nathan Stone.
Stone, of Mentor, was sworn in during the Dec. 16 Kirtland City Council meeting, helping the police department close out the year in a better position than it was months prior.
“Nathan’s a Mentor resident and North High School graduate.
He just recently completed the police academy at Lakeland Community College,” said Police Chief Brian McCallister during the meeting.
“I had an opportunity to be guest speaker for the class. He was one of the last free agents that was left available, so we did everything we can to recruit him and get him over here.”
Stone, who will work part time for the department, marks the second officer recently hired to the force, which, like many police and
See Police• Page 2
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Senior Vince Carriero had a game-high 24 points in the Hornets 78-69 victory over the Blue Devil.
3 Hornets Wrestlers Place at Rebel Invitational
By AlAn KornspA sports@KArlovecmedi
Various wrestlers have already represent ed Kirtland on the podium so far this season — a strong start for the Hornets team.
Leading the way have been junior captain Noah Conner, sophomore Howie Ayers, and freshman Roman Babic. All three recently placed in the Willoughby South Rebel Invita tional.
Hornets Head Coach Dan Cosimi said that he was happy with how his wrestlers performed.
“We have a great group of kids, and they came out here and battled,” Coach Cosimi said. “We had Roman Babic place third, he's only a freshman. Noah Conner placed fifth, he's a junior; he's our captain. And Howie Ayers, he placed sixth. Real proud of all the guys for the effort.”
In the Rebel Invitational, Conner started well, defeating his opponent from Wooster by a technical fall with a 17-2 victory.
After losing to Brecksville's Toby Stadler, Conner won his next two matches to finish fifth. First, he defeated Jamien Isaac from St. Ignatius, getting the pin 49 seconds into the second round. Then, in his final match, Conner defeated Jackson Klein from Beachwood, 11-9, to claim his spot on the podium.
crotch (move), so I kept sticking with that instead of just trying to switch it up,” Conner said.
Conner said that the main moves he utilized for success during the tournament were the high crotch and single moves. He was hoping to utilize the low single and the ankle
Boys
Basketball from page 1
in the third quarter, allowing the Blue Devils to get back in the game.
But in the fourth quarter, the Hornets were still able to thwart off the Blue Devils comeback and claim a 78-69 victory.
McGregor credited the fourth-quarter senior leadership of Vince Carriero, Will Burt and Aiden Hurd for helping the Hornets earn the W.
Throughout the contest, in order to slow down the Blue Devils, the Hornets' focus was on defending the perimeter and the Blue Devils' talented guards.
Coach McGregor said his team tried to limit the Blue Devils' 3-pointer attempts and focused on slowing down Walter Cable, who is among the CVC's top players.
In particular, McGregor wanted the Hornets to try to limit Cable from scoring off the high pick and roll play.
Added Carriero, “The game plan was to slow down Walt Cable. He's a good player. So if we could slow him down, they are going to have a tougher time.”
Afterwards, in reflecting on his team's performance, Coach McGregor thought the
Coach Cosimi agreed that the move worked well for Conner through the tournament, and that his sound judgment wasn't surprising considering the season he's already put behind him.
Hornets played well.
“I thought our kids did a good job for the most part,” the coach said. “All in all, I thought we executed the game plan. We attacked on the offensive end and made some plays.”
Point guard Vince Carriero said that recognizing when to slow down the offense helped the Hornets have success late in the game.
“It was a quick game. They like to press, we like to press, so it was a lot of up and down,” Carriero said. “One thing we struggled with was slowing the game down. It's good to push it when you've got the lane, but sometimes we didn't recognize that we needed to slow it down. I think we did better with that in the fourth quarter, and that's why we were able to pull away.”
Kirtland was led by Carriero, who had 24 points, and Renfro, who had 19.
Renfro's clutch 3-point shooting helped slow down Wickliffe's run in the third quarter.
“It was a good feeling to knock down (the 3- pointers) back to back,” Renfro said.
In addition to Carriero and Renfro, the Hornets were also led offensively against the Blue Devils by Ben DiFranco (11 points), Burt (6), Hurd (6), Dan Alfieri (4), Mike Dumstorff (4), Johnny Rascan (2) and Sammy Ridgeway (2).
“I think he has wrestled well every match this year. We're really proud of Noah, and it was a really good day for him.” Conner also finished fourth at the Ashton
first match with a late first-period pin against Anthony Titschinger from Willoughby South. After losing his next two matches, Babic battled back from adversity and claimed a third place finish with an 8-3 victory over Willis Kennedy from Shaw High School.
After finishing on the podium, Babic discussed the moves that worked well in his final match.
“My arm bar tilt was working really well, and I was able to get a lot of back points on him,” Babic said.
Earlier in the season, Babic lost his first match at the Ashton Hynd Battle by the Lake, then came back to win his next three matches and finish on the podium. In rounds two and three, Babic defeated Jimmy Francisco from Salem, 11-2, then Leo Lukaj from Madison, 11-8.
In his final match of the tournament, Babic defeated Connor Ahlin from Madison, 14-2 to finish in third place.
Babic said that defeating Ahlin in the final match was the highlight of the tournament for him.
“My last match was against this Madison wrestler that I hadn't faced since middle school,” Babic said. “We've always gone back to back, but I dominated the match.”
Babic also finished on the podium in eighth place at the Kenston Invitational held
for doing a great job with the couple of snow events we’ve had in the last couple of weeks, working through the cold weather,” he said.
“As always, our team does a great job”
roads, Fornaro explained.
“So, we used quite a bit of salt,” he said.
“My rough guess would be over 1,000 tons of salt used, that would be a quarter of our salt.”
A Note from the Mayor
Before getting into the promise and hope of the New Year, I must give thanks to some exceptional people.
If you drove by Kirtland City Hall this holiday season, you might have noticed a Happy Holidays banner standing colorfully on the front lawn. Five years ago, in the spirit of cooperation and community, my wife, Jeni, reached out to Mr. Harvey at Kirtland High School to ask if students could design a holi day banner.
Since then, it has become a tradition that a student’s work is chosen to add to the municipal center’s holiday decorations. I want to thank Knox Crisci for his truly creative and festively artful design that stood as part of the wonderful decorations at city hall.
Thank you to the Grazia fami ly for donating the Christmas tree that stood prominently on the lawn at city hall. And to the Garden Club of Kirtland that once again added to an atmosphere of holiday cheer by applying their craft around town and at the municipal center. We are so blessed to have this group of women willing to take time and put forth such an effort that truly adds to the spirit of the season.
I also want to thank Joe Vinciquerra for his 15 years of service to the Kirtland Planning and Zoning Commission. Joe recently
moved from the city, thereby relinquishing his seat on the commission. “Joe V,” as so many of us refer to him, spent a decade and a half serving this community with a unique concern and great disposition that looked out for both the city and applicants appearing before the commission. Thank you, Joe! 2025 looks to be an exciting year for the planning commission and in turn, Kirtland. With several intriguing and exciting development projects set to appear before the board this year, I, for one, am appreciative that we have such a dedicated and talented pool of commission members working on the city’s behalf. In the coming weeks and months, the administration and Kirtland City Council will be working together to discern the 2025 annual city budget. As always, the goal for this discussion will be ensuring every tax dollar spent is done wisely.
In doing so, we will continue to be sure we have the workforce and equipment to most efficiently and effectively keep our residents safe. Luckily, we have a hard-working city council as well as department heads that will work hard to prioritize the needs of our community.
Thank you and Happy New Year, Mayor Potter
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Mayor Kevin Potter
By KAthy tAlty
Kiwanis Korner
What a busy month December was. We had our annual Senior Holiday Dinner on Dec. 5 for guests 75 years old and older.
This was held at the Community of Christ Church. We had over 100 guests plus Santa. Two days later, Santa was kind enough to join us again at the Kirtland Community Center for our second annual Breakfast with Santa to a packed house.
The buttermilk pancakes were excellent and the kids shared with Santa what they were hoping to receive under the tree.
We hosted our Kiwanis Division 22 meeting at the Kirtland Community Center on
Dec. 11. We enjoyed the company of Kiwanis members from the Northeast Ohio area and a White Elephant gift.
Our spiritual chair, Jane Lyon, shared the holiday spirit by making sure the Kirtland Woods (previously the Kirtland Rehab.) with 25 gingerbread houses from the Kiwanis. Our club, after signing tons of cards for the seniors at rehab and resident homes, had our own White Elephant gift exchange that included receiving some crazy stuff, like the Christmas tree hat.
Queen Bee quote: May there be light where there was once darkness.
And may we all have much happiness, good health, and great prosperity in 2025.
Students of the Month
The Kirtland Kiwanis “Students of the Month” for January 2025 are fifth-grader Marlena Dudgeon, of Kirtland Elementary School, seventh-grader Mckinley Potter and 12th-grader Aidan Wertenberger, of Kirtland High School.
The Kiwanis sponsors the “Students of the Month.” The principal and staff chose one student from each school to be recognized.
Each student has their picture taken, receives a certificate and a T-shirt that says, “Student of the Month.”
From left, “Students of the Month” Marlena Dudgeon, of KES, Mckinley Potter, of KMS, and Aidan Wertenberger, of KHS.
Katic Drops Career-High 31 Points in Hornets Win
By AlAn KornspAn sports@KArlovecmediA com
The Kirtland girls basketball team had hatched a very specific plan going into their game with their conference rival, West Geau ga, Dec. 23 at Kirtland High School.
“Get Kim (Kristiana Katic) the ball. That's it, that's number one, get Kim the ball,” Hor nets Head Coach Matt Ridgeway said. “We just focused on getting her the ball. We knew we had a little size advantage, so we wanted to get the ball down inside.”
And that game plan worked extremely well, as Katic scored a career-high 31 points in the 48-32 Hornets victory over the Wolver ines.
With a 7-5 lead heading into the second quarter, Katic led her team with seven sec ond-quarter points, and the Hornets took a 16-14 lead into halftime.
Then Katic dropped 23 points as the Hor nets outscored the Wolverines 32-18 in the second half to claim victory.
Afterwards, Katic talked about her phe nomenal game and the strategic advantage of feeding her the ball down low. When receiving the ball in the low post, Katic noted two main options: kicking the ball back out to an open player on the perimeter, or taking the ball to the rim.
ALAN KORNSPAN/KMG
Kristiana Katic had a career-high 31 points in the Hornets’ 48-32 victory over the Wolverines.
“The inside touches really help us out,” Katic said. “It makes everyone collapse down into me or Chloe (Hansen) or Lauren (Palagyi). And then the outside shots were there, or people were open on the perimeter.”
Taking the ball to the rim, meanwhile, would allows Katic to drive in for a layup or to draw contact and get to the foul line.
“Kim (Katic) did really well down low,” said senior teammate Emily Ridgeway. “Kim did really well under the basket, so that helped us tremendously. She definitely dominated. She got fouled a lot, but she still worked through that and got the layups in.”
While this game certainly stood out for Katic, she has actually scored in double figures every game so far this season. In fact, she's scored 144 total points (averaging 18 points per game) against West Geauga, Vil-
la-Angela St. Joseph's (26 points), Cornerstone Christian Academy (20), Berkshire (16), Independence (15), Wickliffe (15), Crestwood (11) and Cardinal (10).
Also having a good season for the Hornets is Ridgeway.
Ridgeway has scored in double figures three times against opponents from Crestwood (13 points), Cardinal (15) and Independence (16) and was her team's leading scorer in each of these three contests.
Thanks to the stellar play of seniors Katic and Ridgeway, Kirtland moved to 4-4 on the season after its win against West G. The team has played a “very strong schedule” so far, Coach Ridgeway said.
“We've had great wins, won against St. Joe’s (Villa-Angela St. Joseph’s) and that was a really good win. We've had some nail biters with Independence and Berkshire,” he said.
“We're 4-4 heading into (the new year). Our number one goal is to have fun, and number two is to play our best at the end of the year.”
All is Merry and Bright at the Kiwanis 2025 Christmas Party
The Kirtland Public Library is located at 9267 Chillicothe Road. Hours are Monday-Thursday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Friday-Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For more information about any of these programs or to register, please call the library at 440-256-7323 or visit www.kirtland.lib.oh.us
January Adult Programs Clubs
Knit & Crochet
Jan. 21 • 6 p.m.
Open to anyone who enjoys knitting or crocheting, or is interested in learning these skills. Join the fun the first Monday and third Tuesday of each month from 6-7 p.m. Bring your own supplies; drop in and get hooked.
No Pressure Book Discussion
Jan. 27 • 1:30 p.m.
Join us in the Community Room to talk about any books you've read recently that you want to recommend to others. Bring a bagged lunch if you would like to.
Cookbook Club
Jan. 28 • 6 p.m.
This club is for anyone who wants to expand their cooking knowledge and have some fun in the kitchen. Choose your favorite TV chef’s cookbook and make any recipe from that book to share. Call the library for more information.
Special Events
Author Panel
Jan. 14 • 5:30 p.m.
You will find several different genres
of authors at our Author Panel. Lynn Ellen will be sharing about her historical fiction book, “Returning to Hattie.” Dr. Thomas Adams will talk about “Where is the No. 2? The Mystery of The Marquette and the Bessemer No. 2.” This book is full of local history on Lake Erie.
Terry Armstrong has a rich history of concert experiences and loves to share and engage with other music lovers. His book “Aerosmith to ZZ Top: A Dad and Daughter's Rock and Roll Journey,” is a great read. Chris Lambert brings his love for pop culture into the 35 books he has written. He will be bringing his latest book, “My Batman, and Maybe Yours Too.”
Please register for this event as space is limited.
Protecting the Jewels of the Night
Jan. 22 • 6 p.m.
Fireflies are an integral component of healthy, thriving environments. They are beloved insects but they are declining.
Learn what you can do in your environment to help fireflies thrive. This program is presented by Cat Miller from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and sponsored by the Friends of the Kirtland Public Library.
Loom Weaving
Jan. 25 • 10 a.m.
Learn how to make a knitted hat on a loom. The library will supply the looms, hooks and yarn. Ages 8 and up are welcome in this program.
Registration is required.
January Youth Programs Special Events
LEGO Club
Jan. 11 • 10:30 a.m.
Families, spend an hour creating with the library’s LEGO bricks. Once you have
completed your creation, you will place it in on display for all to see until the next LEGO Club. Please register for this event.
Teen Mug Cakes
Jan. 14 • 3 p.m.
Youth in grades sixth and up, create a cupcake in a mug, then bake it in the microwave. You will get to enjoy it while it is still warm. Please register for this event.
Max and Mo Make a Snowman
Jan. 18 • 10:30 a.m.
Attendees up to through 5 years old will hear Patricia Lakin's “Max and Mo Make a Snowman” and then create a craft snowman, just as Max and Mo do. Please register everyone attending.
Empowerment Circle
Jan. 22 • 3:30 p.m.
Presented by Forbes House, Empowerment Circle is an initiative that fosters education about healthy relationships.
The program includes educational presentations, group discussions and other activities. Forbes House uses evidence-based curriculum when creating and implementing Empowerment Circle. The group is most beneficial for those between the ages of 12 to 18. There is no charge to attend Empowerment Circle. Please register.
Weekly Events
Lapsit
Tuesdays • 10 a.m.
Bounces, rhymes, one book, scarves and shakers, geared for families with children under the age of 3. No need to register.
Storytime
Wednesdays • 10 a.m.
Enjoy great books, rhymes, songs, and surprises with your child. This storytime is geared for families with children aged 5 and under. No need to register.
DONNA ROBINSON/KMG
2024-2025 Kirtland Kiwanis members pose with Santa Claus during the Dec. 5 Kiwanis Christmas party at the Community of Christ Church.
Kirtland Kiwanis 2024-2025 President Kathy Talty poses by the Christmas tree at during the Kirtland Kiwanis Christmas Party Dec. 5 at the Community of Christ Church.
Kirtland Schools
second semester. I continue to be amazed by all the great things our students and staff are doing in the Kirtland Local Schools.
Thank you to Senior Knox Crisci for creating the holiday banner that is displayed in front of city hall. Nice work Knox!
The National Honors Society inducted 17 students on Decem ber 12th. Congratulations to Eric Bradac, Faith Blankenship, Jared Cottrell, Isabelle Copeland, Kait lyn D'Amato, Michael Dumstorff, Maya Helwig, Elliot Hostelley, Matilda Jankowski, Jillian Keller, Jacob LaVerde, Laurn Palagyi, Priscilla Pennza, Andrew Thaler, Megan Urbanick, Niko Vasquez, and Charles Whittaker.
team was the runner up at state in Division XI and this was the 13th time in the last 14 years they have played in the state championship game! While this is a tremendous feat, what the team did before and after the championship game is worth recognizing and speaks to their character.
By Chad VanArnhem, Superintendent
Before the start of the game, they invited a middle school player to be the honorary captain who went through chemotherapy just days before the game. Following the game, the team stopped at Akron Children’s Hospital to see their teammate who has been hospitalized since September.
I am so proud of our students as they continue to give back and help others in our community. The K-Kids made holiday cards for veterans, holiday cards and ornaments for staff and made blankets for the homeless. Our students in grades K-12 also had a tremendous food drive to provide supplies to our local food pantry. Donations were also collected for those affected by the hurricanes at KMS.
The marching band, cheerleaders, coach-
The team presented him with hugs, the runner up trophy and his own medal that all players were given after the game. While they
It was a pleasure hearing all of the choir and band concerts in December. I want to give a shout out to Mr. Dingeldien, Ms. Bobbit, Ms. Smock and their students on the wonderful performances from all three buildings. Congratulations also to Mr. Lasecki and the fifth grade students on a wonderful performance of “A Christmas Carol”.
Thank you for your continued support and go Hornets!
