Four titles, tons of success: Looking back at Avon's remarkable school year and the reasons behind it

To say it was a dream year for Avon athletics would be a vast understatement.The Eagles became just the sixth school in Ohio history to win four team state championships in one school year, and they sprinkled in a lot of success on the state level in addition to those titles.In the fall, the Avon boys soccer team and girls volleyball team won Division II state championships on the same day — within hours of each other — and the football team won its second straight D-II state title just a few weeks later.The Eagles added their fourth state championship in the spring, when the girls track team dominated the field to bring home the Division I title."It's funny because our school has been around since (1895) and we had zero (state titles)," Avon athletic director Erich Frombach said. "Then the football team wins one last year and we have four more this year … so, yeah, it's been an incredible run."There was a point in my career I thought I might retire and never have the chance to experience (winning a state title) so we feel very fortunate to have had the year we had."GETTING IT STARTEDThe championships runs didn't come about overnight. They didn't even start with the offseason work. According to longtime football coach Mike Elder, the success during the 2025-26 school year began more than a decade ago."I think this thing all started when Mike Laub became our superintendent (in 2012)," said Elder, who joined Elyria Catholic's Jim Rattay as the only coaches in Lorain County to win two state titles in football. "We were allowed to be unapologetic for wanting to be high on academics as well as being a school that put a lot of emphasis on extracurriculars."We were growing as a school district and community, and when we were looking for teachers the last interview question was, 'What else are you willing to do with our kids at Avon?' We've hired a lot of people who are willing to not only be great classroom teachers, but they're willing to put in the time and effort — and not making much money — to coach high school athletics because they love what it does for the kids … and that's what's different here."Frombach has been running the athletic department for 20 years, and he hired Elder to lead the football program and Chris Dore — a Lorain Catholic grad who played professional soccer with several teams, including stints with the Cleveland Crunch and Cleveland Force — to head the boys soccer team during his second year on the job."Coach Elder always jokes that it was the best draft class I've ever had," Frombach said.Elder, who serves as the high school's HR director, was part of the hiring process for volleyball coach Kara Coffman, the daughter of former Avon High principal Chad Coffman, and girls track coach Sam Ulery has served as an assistant coach for the football team."I'm so abundantly proud of all our programs, and not just the ones who won state championships," Elder said. "The kids obviously deserve the most credit because they're willing to put in the work and they're kids who work exceptionally hard."PLENTY OF SUPPORTThat doesn't mean the Eagles athletes didn't get help in achieving those lofty goals.After the superintendent opened the door, the athletic director put the right pieces on the board and the coaches came up with solid game plans, there were still a lot of others who came together to make sure the Eagles had the freedom to soar.Elder credits former superintendent Ben Hodge and the Board of Education for clearing the way for the building of a new weight room that Elder called "one of the best in the country."Elder also mentioned assistant athletic director Mike Ryan, principal Kristina Buller, strength and conditioning coach Jared Cecchetti and assistant strength and conditioning coach Jason Ochs, who also serves as the softball coach, as those who've been instrumental in building a championship culture within the school."Jared Cecchetti is unbelievable," Elder said. "Our strength and conditioning program is one of the big reasons why we're good at everything right now. He's also our (football) defensive coordinator and he's the shot (put) and discus coach, and you saw how well those kids did at state."One thing people don't realize is that our basketball teams, our hockey team, football team, track teams, lacrosse teams … they're all training together. It's one program. They're not waiting for the end of football to go to basketball and then to go play baseball — we're training athletes here."RISING IN THE FALLAvon began its march toward earning the "Title Town" moniker with a thrilling 1-0 overtime victory over Kings Mills Kings in the boys soccer state final at Crew Stadium in Columbus.Brock Harman scored the winning goal in sudden death to earn the Eagles their first state championship in program history and just the second in school history after the football team's breakout performance in 2024."During preseason, Coach Dore thought we were going to be pretty good. He thought we could make a run, so his expectations were (a state title)," Frombach said. "Some magical things happened during that run. We had that one against Brecksville (in the state semifinals) where (sophomore Connor) Britt hit that (goal) in overtime, in the wind, and how hard they had to play in the state championship to win that game in overtime … it's hard to have everything fall in place."They've had some close calls, too. The boys soccer team made it to the Final Four a few years ago and lost to St. Ignatius 1-0, so it's one of those things where it did take some time to do it, but you felt it was going to get done because (Dore) is such an exceptional coach."There's an iconic photo of the girls volleyball team huddled around a mobile phone watching the boys soccer team compete in the state final on the side of the volleyball court while they were warming up for their shot at a championship."I think it was like a domino effect. Soccer doing it pushed the volleyball team to do it and then football did it for the second time … the whole city came together and we were all really pushing each other to succeed," said Lily Hamilton, who finished with nearly 1,900 career assists and will play volleyball for Ashland University.The Eagles made it 2-for-2 that day with a 25-16, 18-25, 25-23, 25-22 victory over Whitehouse Anthony Wayne."So, with volleyball, they had a lot of people back but had lost a really good senior class of leaders the year before, so it beat the Magnificat team that had beaten us earlier and was really talented, and then they had to beat Anthony Wayne, who had beat us before in the state Final Four and was probably the No. 1-ranked team throughout the course of the year. I think those girls just believed in and loved each other, and there was no way they weren't going to win it all."A few weeks later, the football team completed the fall championship trilogy with a 37-20 victory over Cincinnati Anderson to become the county's second repeat champion in the sport after Elyria Catholic in 1983-84."They lost a ton of great players on the line and some skill position players," Frombach said of the 2024 title team. "But we knew we had (senior) Blake (Elder) coming back and that he was a good quarterback because of what he had done his sophomore year. But in my opinion there's just nobody that leads like Coach Elder and his staff, and how hard they work or what they bring to the table, knowledge-wise. They've just established themselves as being one of the top programs in the state and that's now become an expectation."A SPRING ENCOREAfter the big finish to 2025, the Eagles decided to keep things going in 2026. The girls track team pulled off an incredible overall performance to win the fourth state championship of the school year — 68-61 over runner-up Hilliard Davidson — and the boys team finished third with 39 points, just two back of co-champions Big Walnut and New Philadelphia in Division II.The girls had a plethora of athletes step up with top-10 performances to run away with the title, including runner-up finishes for the 3,200-meter relay of Jessica Pendleton, Molly Suter, Kaitlyn Reese and Olivia Pajak, Reese in the 1,600, Alyse Brediger in the 400 and Hamilton in the shot put."If you had told me my freshman year that I would help lead my high school to two state championships my senior year, I literally would have looked at you like you were insane," Hamilton said. "I could never imagine that it would be possible. So I'm really proud of those two rings and it's just a great experience to leave Avon with a bang."Brediger, who was also a member of the championship volleyball team, finished fourth in the 100, fifth in the 200 and was part of the fourth-place 800 relay team that included Jayla Antrum, Molley Kennedy and Paige Justice.Justice finished fifth in the 300 hurdles and eighth in the 100 hurdles, Reese was third in the 800 and fourth in the 3,200 and Kenzie Kiesel took third in discus."The great part about it was Kaitlyn or Ally or Paige, they could have focused on just one or two events and won individual state championships but ended up running in four events and some of those were back-to-back, which makes it tough on an athlete," Frombach said. "They did it for the betterment of the team. We didn't have one state champion on that girls track team but they won the state championship (as a team) because they decided they were going to do it together."While the boys fell short of the team title, they were able to add three individual state championships to Avon's 2025-26 haul.Max Hauck, an offensive lineman on the two state championship teams who will play for Miami of Ohio, won the discus and shot put titles, while Jackson Hughes won the long jump."If you would have told me we were going to win four team state championships and that I would win two by myself before this year started, I would have thought you were crazy," Hauck said. "The whole thing just kind of blows me away. But to see it happen and to have watched all the work we put in in the weight room … it's just amazing for our community."I wanted that team championship for the boys (track team) but we came up a little short. But just to know that we went out and worked as hard as we could and did our best … it was amazing to see."SO MUCH SUCCESSFrombach believes Avon's move to the Southwestern Conference years ago is also a factor in the success as the league is filled with schools that have gotten it done at the highest level.Olmsted Falls and Avon Lake have won state championships in football, Elyria has multiple state championships in softball and its wrestling team was nationally ranked for six straight years and Amherst, Midview and North Ridgeville have sent various teams to the state Final Four."Our league has been doing it for years," Frombach said. "Honestly, (the OHSAA) adding more divisions has helped make the playing field a bit more fair, at least for a school our size, but that definitely has people looking around and going, 'We can make a run … it's possible.'"While the spotlight fell on the four teams who finished on top of the podium, Frombach said Avon spread around the success this year."We were third in the state in girls cross country and a lot of people forget about that (because of the three fall state titles)," he said. "We also made it to the regional finals in girls soccer and we had Eian Englehart finish as the state runner-up in wrestling. We had a lot of our swimmers go down to state, so they've just been dominating Northeast Ohio, year in and year out. So it was a really good class of kids and it was a really good year for us, for sure."While the success across multiple seasons may have opened the eyes of fans throughout Ohio, the Eagles knew a year like this was always possible."I think it's just a testament to how hard we work as athletes at Avon, whether it's in the weight room or practicing," Hamilton said. "Our coaches push us so much, our teammates push us and I think it's just a great environment to be in. I think you can thrive in an environment like that when you're surrounded by people who want it just as much as you. It gets you to good places and it gets you state championships." Contact Shaun Bennett at (440) 329-7137 or sbennett@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him @ShaunBennettct on X.