2 minute read
Ashland
from Prep Football 2021
Ready or not, here comes Ashland
Rebuilding Grizzlies set for a return to varsity play in 2021
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By Danny Penza
Mail Tribune
ASHLAND — When Beau Lehnerz first took over the football program at Ashland High School in 2017, it was about building up a very young team at the varsity level.
As Lehnerz enters his fifth year at the helm, that same theme is very much the case in 2021.
Without playing a varsity schedule in the spring due to a handful of concerns that included player safety, Lehnerz always knew that the Grizzlies were going to be young when the regularly scheduled fall season arrived. And with only six seniors on the roster, that is still very much the case.
But knowing that he and the Grizzlies have been in this situation before, he has a clear example of something to point
Ashland High quarterback Ronin Kimbrough is one of the few seniors on the Grizzlies’ roster this fall.
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to as the end product for this group of youngsters.
“We’ve had a young team before and we were 2-7, but those kids kept fighting and they ended up in the quarterfinals of the state playoffs in their senior year,” Lehnerz said, referencing the last time the Grizzlies played a varsity schedule. “It’s about patience, and that’s really been what we’ve been stressing as much as we can just because we’re so young.”
Impatience amid the desire for immediate results will be a thing that Lehnerz and his coaching staff expect to battle this season. Lehnerz fully admits that his team will take some lumps as the vast majority of his roster gets their first taste of varsity football.
But what Lehnerz knows is that his team will be gaining valuable experience, a lot like the young Grizzlies in 2017 and 2018, that could very well pay off a year or two down the road.
“Similar to the team that we had in 2019, a lot of those seniors, when they were sophomores, a lot of them were playing,” Lehnerz said. “That was my first year as head coach, and they took their lumps. But they got better and better and better, and by the time they were seniors they had an amazing year. There’s a lot of similarities there that these kids are going to have to be thrown into the fire and compete and take their lumps, but hopefully grow from it.”
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