OLIVESBURG, Ohio – Crestview senior Grant Fulk left his legacy on the field Friday night.
In the final game of his career, the 6-foot-2, 160-pound wide receiver nabbed two touchdown receptions to help lead the Cougars to a 32-7 rout of rival Plymouth, as well as set Crestview’s record for career scoring catches.
“It means everything to me to finish this year with all my friends and teammates I’ve had since my freshman year,” Fulk said. “I mean, it was a journey that whole ride, and we may have not finished the way we would have liked this year, but it was still fun.”
Fulk broke the record in the third quarter by catching a short pass from Jay Oswalt and taking it 55 yards down the right sideline. The score put the Cougars up 19-0 and gave Fulk his fourteenth career TD grab.
“That was supposed to be a setup pass, but it ended up going,” Fulk said.
He cemented his record with another trip to paydirt in the fourth, catching a 48-yard pass from Oswalt, giving Crestview (3-7, 2-5 Firelands Conference) a 32-point margin.
“We had good blocks from the line, so (Oswalt) had plenty of time to check all of his reads and made a good pass,” Fulk said of the scoring play.
Making Fulk’s record-setting career more impressive is that he can’t lift his arms above his shoulders, according to Cougars coach Dan Mager, who said Fulk had shoulder surgery before the season.
Fulk’s shoulder problem was a secret the team kept all year.
“For him to come out, we knew he had the record tonight and wanted to get him that touchdown,” Mager said. “Then he ends up making a big, long touchdown – what a fairy-tale ending for a senior that wasn’t even going to play this year because of his shoulder.”
Mental Errors: Plymouth finished its season with a mark of 2-8 overall and 1-6 in the Firelands.
Big Red coach Mark Genders said his team deserved a better fate – especially his senior group.
“They worked so hard in the offseason,” Genders said. “But there were a lot of positive things – with the camaraderie in the offseason and stuff – but we just didn’t make the plays that we needed to.
“We had too many mental mistakes all season, and it’s nothing but our own fault.”
He added that his staff and players are going to spend the offseason trying to fix those things.
“The mental mistakes we made were astronomical, and it’s been that way all year,” Genders said. “And when we did make a mistake, we’ve been hit with a homerun every time.”
Plymouth’s lone score came in the fourth quarter when sophomore quarterback Seth Bailey found Remington Smedley for a 47-yard grab.
Ending on a High Note: Mager said he knew what his team was capable of this season despite its record.
“I told them again tonight, if we play together like we did against Monroeville (in Week 8), we would have a great outcome tonight for our seniors, and that’s exactly what they did,” he said. “We took care of business on defense, special teams, and offense – it was just a good game all the way around.”
Cougars quarterback Oswalt, a sophomore, tossed four TDs and tallied one on the ground.
Tanner Noblet and Dawson Lafever were on the receiving end of two of those scores.
For Mager, who was in his first season at the helm in Crestview, coaching this team this year was an “awesome experience.”
“Every day I tell these guys there are 16,000 high schools in the country, and I’m the head coach of one of them right here in my hometown area,” he said. “I’m just so blessed to be here.”
Before leading the Cougars, Mager was an assistant at Hillsdale.
“I’m just so proud of it, and I just love coaching and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but here.”
