Lake County Sentinel
Beavers win WRC title with 43-20 win over Rebels
BY JOEY SCHNEIDER
STAFF
(PAINESVILLE TOWNSHIP, OH) - The Riverside Beavers clinched the Western Reserve Conference title and a OHSAA playoff birth with a hard fought 43-20 win over the Willoughby South Rebels on Friday night at Riverside Stadium.
Both the Rebels and Beavers knew what was at stake. South needed to win for a chance at the playoffs, and Riverside needed the win the claim the WRC championship. "Our guys definitely know what we need to do tonight. They have been focused. I'm proud of how they have practiced all week. That's a great team (Riverside), there's a lot of respect, but we need to focus on the game plan and execute" said South Coach Matt Duffy before the game.
South started the game with the ball, but on third down Riverside's J'ayvion Kyser made an incredible interception taking the ball down the field setting up Riverside for the first score of the game on a seven-yard rush by senior running back and Harvard commit, Kyndall McCaleb. McCaleb had a massive night rushing for 258 yards on 22 carries and four touchdowns. McCaleb gave his teammates credit after the game. "The line did great. They put in work. They've been practicing hard all week. The receivers did a great job blocking. Everyone did their job and we were able to get the win."
Willoughby South's senior running back Jayden Hardy also had a big rushing while fighting through an injury he sustained during the game rushing for 162 yards on 23 carries and a touchdown.
Great quarterback play was on display all game for both South and Riverside. South's Luke Jensen was 8/13 for 140 yards and a touchdown. 118 of those yards were caught by Jensen's younger brother Josh Jensen on four receptions. Riverside's Bo Brandehoff was equally impressive going 12/18 for 126 and two touchdowns. After the game Brandehoff talked about what it means to be the WRC champs. "It's crazy. I've dreamed this. All the work you put in as a team. The last time we won this we had a crazy team at Riverside and it just shows we brought this on for years and years."
Coach Jeremy Ishmael was nothing but smiles after the game. He gave his team a talk about finishing what they started and winning the conference title and hugged almost every player and staff. "Give ourselves a chance, give ourselves a chance to be there in the end. We talked about it at halftime. We are up by the touchdown. We have 24 minutes and we talked about it all year long. You want to win this conference in the last year of it's existence. You talked about that all summer long, you have 24 minutes to make it happen. So we're either going to make it happen or be a bunch of pretenders who wished it happened. So we made a decision to finish it up and we got the job done."
With the win Riverside finishes 7-3 and also cliched a home playoff game next week for the playoffs, but they will have to wait to see who they will play next week, with all games still TBD.
POSTED 10/25/2025 00:39
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. Photo by Joey Schneider
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