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Hoban senior pitcher Nate Prebonick blanked Chagrin Falls Kenston 4-0 in the district semifinals, setting up the district title game with Walsh, which the Knights won by a 3-0 score.

Going all the way back through the decades, the Archbishop Hoban baseball team had had a horde of big wins. Only those who coached the Knights or played for them will remember them all.

But with all due respect to those squads – and those victories – what the Knights did Saturday may be as good as any of them, or even better.

Their 3-0 triumph over Walsh Jesuit in the Akron Division II District title game was “really something special and a very big step for our program,” according to third-year coach Jim Diestel.

“I say this as a compliment, but Walsh is the local high school equivalent of the big, bad New York Yankees,” he said. “With (current coach) Chris (Kaczmar) and the guys who coached there ahead of him, they have been so good for so long.

“If you’re trying to build your program and you’re not using Walsh as the model, then I’m sorry, but you’re going in the wrong direction.”

The Warriors measure their success not by getting to the state championship game, but by winning state championships. They are that accomplished.

Walsh knocked Hoban out of the tournament the previous two years, but the Knights were making strides all the while. They were 13-13 in Diestel’s first season and 18-9 last year.

“When I took the job, I wanted to build up the schedule,” he said. “I wanted to go out and play the best, but first we had to make ourselves appealing enough for those good teams to want to play us.

“That’s what teams like Walsh do. They play a challenging schedule. It makes you stronger. It makes you a better team.”

It made the the Knights better. They’re 15-7 this year, but those defeats have come to some pretty good teams.

As a result, the Knights went into the Walsh game truly believing they were good enough to win.

“A lot of the kids we have this year are seniors who were sophomores and then juniors when we lost to Walsh the last two seasons,” Diestel said. “They grew up and matured through those experiences.”

Still, when it happened and the Knights had the victory, they had to stop, take a deep breath and fully grasp what they had just done.

“Twenty years from now, that win will be something that these kids look back on as one of the greatest achievements they’ve had,” Diestel said. “I just hope that we can keep winning and add some more moments for them to look back on down the road.”

It starts with Thursday’s Akron Regional semifinal game against Tallmadge.

“We’re playing another team that, like Walsh, has a tremendous tradition,” Diestel said. “They’ve been in these types of situations over the years a lot more than we have. So we’ve really got our work cut out for us again.”

But, as Diestel will be quick to point out, it’s just good to still be working at this point of the season.

ANOTHER BIG VICTORY: Just like the Hoban baseball team, the Walsh softball team had a win to remember and cherish with its 3-2 decision over Tallmadge last Sunday in the Akron Division II District championship game. It took what had been an ordinary season for the Warriors, and transformed it into an extraordinary one.

Everybody took notice of it, even those who vote in the Ohio High School Softball Coaches Association state polls. The Warriors are 10th this week in Division II.    

STAYING PUT -- FOR NOW: There will come a time – and soon – when St. Vincent-St. Mary’s Doran Grant will pack his things and head to Columbus to play football for Ohio State as a defensive back.

But that can wait – maybe not the part about going to Columbus, but at least the part about beginning his college football career. Grant, the defending Division II state champion in the 110 hurdles, won that event at last Saturday’s Orrville District and will compete in the Lexington Regional on Thursday and Saturday.

A lot of Grant’s 2011 Ohio State recruiting class, including big Firestone lineman Tommy Brown, graduated from high school in mid-year, enrolled at Ohio State  and went through the spring drills with their new Buckeyes teammates so as to get a head start for next year. Grant would not have been able to do the same thing – STVM does not allow it – but even if that rule were not in place, he says he still would have stayed.

“You do get a jump on everyone by going down to Ohio State early. There’s no question about that,” he said. “But I couldn’t have left. I’ve been with these people a long time here, and St. Vincent-St. Mary is a great school. This has been a lot of fun, and I want the whole high school experience. Plus I’ve got a hurdles title to defend.”

Also as part of his entire high school experience, he got to be a reserve guard as the Fighting Irish boys basketball team won the Division II state crown.

“Doran is a special kid,” Irish coach Dan Lancianese said. “I’ll probably never have another one like him in my lifetime. He just wants to be with his teammates. He just wants to be a regular kid. He doesn’t want any extra attention. He hates it. In fact, he didn’t like it at the start of the season when he was getting pulled away for this or that because of football, and I told him he had to take the time to deal with those things.”

Lancianese added, “I tell him all the time that he’s doing the right thing by remaining here for all of his senior year. When he gets to be my age and his knees and shoulders ache, he’ll be reminded that he got to do all those things that a senior in high school experiences.”

And if Grant goes to Columbus soon, then it won’t be for football, but rather track, and that will enrich those experiences even more.

BAD START, GREAT FINISH: Kennedy Payne’s girls soccer season last fall ended almost before it began.

The Walsh Jesuit sophomore suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament against in just the second game when, on a breakaway, a Shaker Heights Hathaway Brown player rolled up on her legs from behind.

“At first, I was going to try to play through it, but there was no way I could finish the game,” she said. “And when I woke up the next morning, I couldn’t walk.”

By the time she was back on her feet and starting her rehabilitation, the Warriors were putting the finishing touches on a season in which they captured both the state and national championships.

“I missed the season, but I still felt like part of the team, and I still love soccer,” she said.

But she added that the fact she missed actually being on the field, helping her teammates with the effort, “made me hungrier for track season.”

And it showed with the way she ran in the Orrville District as she won the 100 in a time of 12.67 and earned a trip to the Lexington Regional.

“I don’t know if I was really expecting this. I was just hoping to do well,” she said.

She recovered nicely from Thursday’s preliminaries, which she said “did not go well at all” even though she had the fastest qualifying time. She added, “I was really nervous and had a bad start.”

No, her bad start happened last fall. This is her great finish.

ALMOST THERE: Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy hasn’t named a girls basketball coach yet to replace the retired Bill Stalnaker, but the school is getting close and may come pretty close to hitting its goal date of June 1.

According to athletic director Jay Tyree, the school has already given first interviews to seven candidates and may talk to “one or two more” this week before narrowing it down to three hopefuls and giving them second interviews next week.

Tyree continues to stress that while the school is moving with haste so as to get someone by the end of the school year to set up the all-important summer program, CVCA is also moving slowly enough to make sure the right person is hired.