Nov. 28—Brayden Richards couldn’t have dreamed it up if he tried.
As the Perry football team prepared for an early-week practice heading into the Division V state championship football game Dec. 2 at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Richards took a quick inventory what all he’s been part of while donning the Pirates’ red and white.
A district championship in basketball last winter, which gleaned special mention All-Ohio honors.
A state championship in the D-II 300-meter hurdles to go with the podium spot he earned this past spring in the pole vault.
An adidas national championship in the decathalon this past summer in Greensboro, N.C.
A dynamic senior season in football that came on the heels of a junior campaign in which he was a first team All-Ohio selection.
Richards sighed.
“It almost sounds like stuff right out of a movie,” the son of Chandice and Layne Richards said. “We beat Kirtland in football, and no one has done that. All that other stuff. It’s like a movie; a storybook.”
An important chapter has yet to be written, and that’s the one he hopes he and his Perry teammates can pen this weekend in Canton.
The Pirates’ first state championship in football.
“It’s definitely surreal,” Richards said. “Like last week, when we were up, 22-8, you know you’re winning but you don’t know if it’s going to stay that way. I dind’t fully believe it until I saw all those zeroes on the clock. But we did it.”
Richards has had a tremendous senior season on the gridiron. Heading into the state championship game, he has run for 389 yards, caught 42 passes for 791 yards, threw for 105 yards, accured 84 tackles with five TFLs on defense, and has terrorized many an opponent as a return man on special teams.
It’s the kind of productivity college recruiters drool over when sifting through potential players. But this weekend’s game…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/perrys-brayden-richards-prepares-final-044700590.html
Author : The News-Herald, Willoughby, Ohio
Publish date : 2023-11-29 04:47:00
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