Saint Ignatius (9-0) and St. Edward (9-0) meet for the 50th time on Saturday night at 7 in Parma’s Byers Field.

The game, which is a sellout, will honor local safety forces and both schools will accept donations before the game that will benefit the Blue Coats' fund for families of fallen officers. Cleveland Police Commander Keith Sulzer will present a Safety Forces Trophy to the winning team. Sulzer is a graduate of St. Edward and leads Cleveland's second district.

Seniors John Fanta and Greg Ziton will bring you the game live (audio and video) over the Saint Ignatius Student Broadcasting Network, beginning with their pre-game show at 6:25 p.m. John’s halftime guests will be Lisa Metro, Director of Communications at Saint Ignatius, and Mr. John Morabeto, Saint Ignatius’ Director of Advancement.

SportsTime Ohio will televise the game live, with David Bacon and Bill Powers on the call. In 2001, Coach Powers guided the St. Peter Chanel Firebirds to a 15-0 record and the Division V state championship.

This regular-season finale matches the top two teams in both the Associated Press Division I state poll and The Plain Dealer’s seven-county Top 25 poll. Saint Ignatius holds down the No. 1 spot in the area and state polls, and St. Edward leads the OHSAA Region 1 computer playoff ratings. The Wildcats are in the second spot in Region 1. According to playoff ratings guru Joe Eitel, both teams have already clinched a spot in the playoffs and also a home game in the first round.

Saint Ignatius head coach Chuck Kyle ’69 enters Saturday night’s game with a career record of 299-67-1. The Wildcats lead the series, 27-21-1, with Coach Kyle directing 21 of those victories.

*Here is the corner’s weekly preview on the game, the corner’s Players of the Week from the St. Xavier game and some special comments on the Wildcats-Eagles football series from Saint Ignatius head baseball coach and St. Edward graduate Brad Ganor, and Wildcats assistant football coaches Ryan Franzinger ’02, Terry Fergus ’72, Jim Reginelli ’97 and Brian Straughan ’96.

Ohio City – In the 30 seasons that this corner has had the privilege of covering Saint Ignatius’ highly successful head football coach Chuck “Chico” Kyle, it is Coach Kyle’s honest evaluation of an opponent that has always come across as refreshing and informative.

No, Coach Kyle will never demean the opposing school, its program and its players. The man who has guided his alma mater to an Ohio-record 11 Division I state championships, including a state-best five in a row (1991-‘95), has too much respect for youth, education and the game to be associated with the mislead approach that too often rises its ugly head in sports competition today via the social media.

Coach Kyle, like so many of the great coaches in Ohio and throughout the nation, prefers to focus on the things his team needs to do in order to keep improving and the strengths that the upcoming opponent brings to the table. There is no sugar coating, just the honest facts.

When it comes to Saturday night’s annual showdown with West Side rival St. Edward, Coach Kyle refers to, in a straight forward, look-you-in-the-eye manner, the many strengths and skills that Coach Rick Finotti’s Eagles will bring to Byers Field.

“First of all, offensively they have excellent big-play capability,” Coach Kyle said of the Eagles, who, like Saint Ignatius, come into Saturday’s game unbeaten. “You can stop them on first down, stop them on second down and on third down they’ll break one for a touchdown. They have that kind of ability. At any time, they are a big-play team.”

St Edward, which brought home its first state football championship by going 15-0 under Coach Finotti in 2010, Rick’s second year with the Eagles after a highly successful stint as Mayfield’s defensive coordinator, are led by three of Northeast Ohio’s big-play performers.

Senior quarterback Ryan Fallon, a player this defensive-minded observer has respected for two years because of his resilience and ability to beat you with his arm and his legs, directs an offense that has outscored its opponents, 392-158. Fallon has completed 102 of 179 passes this fall for 1,466 yards and 17 touchdowns. He has been intercepted just four times. On the ground, Fallon has rushed for 438 yards and five touchdowns, while averaging better than 5 yards per carry.

Complementing Fallon are senior tailback Dwayne Aaron and senior wide receiver/kick returner/punter Anthony Young. A two-year mainstay, Aaron has rushed for 1,020 yards and 15 touchdowns this season while averaging 7.23 yards on his carries. Young, one of the premier sprinters in Ohio, if not the entire nation, has 27 receptions for 425 yards and six touchdowns. He also utilizes his exceptional track speed on special teams, where he has returned nine kickoffs for 348 yards and two touchdowns. And he’s always a major threat off reverses and fake punts.

Two of Fallon’s other main targets are senior Alex Middleton (21 receptions for 281 yards and three TDs) and sophomore speedster Shaun Crawford (16 catches for 302 yards and two touchdowns).

St. Edward’s big-play ability came to the fore in Cincinnati last weekend, when the Eagles rallied from a 42-21 deficit late in the third quarter and defeated Archbishop Moeller, 49-42. St. Edward totaled 548 yards of offense. Contributing big time to that comeback from the other side of the ball was senior safety Domenic Abounader, a first-team All-Ohio selection in 2011. A two-time Division I state champion wrestler, Abounader recently accepted a wrestling scholarship from the University of Michigan.

In discussing St. Edward’s exceptional speed, Coach Kyle emphasized that Young, Crawford and others were the sprinters who led the Eagles to the state track and field championship last spring.

“We’ve gone against teams that can run,” Coach Kyle said. “We’re pretty used to that gear. But that’s the challenge – to stay with the receivers and put some heat on the quarterback, I hope. As for their running game, Aaron has good vision and has quick feet. He finds the seams and squirts through little holes. You think you have the seam and then he pops out.

“But our defense is pretty good,” Coach Kyle continued. “So we’ll see. It’s going to be a big challenge for us. The offense can do the defense a big favor by scoring some points. As Moeller discovered, you can look at the scoreboard and think they are out of the game, and they’re not. You have to keep the pressure on.”

Among the leaders on a Saint Ignatius defense that has answered every challenge through nine games are senior end and Boston College recruit Kevin Kavalec, senior end Matt Gawlik and junior outside linebacker Kyle Berger. Kavalec and Gawlik join standout senior nose tackle Dave Katusha in forming one of the top defensive fronts in Northeast Ohio, a threesome this corner refers to as “The Chairmen of the Board.”

Kavalec, a first-team All-Ohio selection in 2011, enters Saturday’s game with 41 tackles, including 28 solos, 24 tackles for losses and 7 sacks. He also has a forced fumble, 4 fumble recoveries, 2 pass deflections, a touchdown and a safety. Gawlik has totaled 39 tackles, including 20 solos, 21 tackles behind the line of scrimmage and 4 sacks.

Berger, who is coming off the best game of his varsity career in last weekend’s 32-21 victory at St. Xavier, a game that saw the Wildcats rally from a 21-6 deficit with 11:09 remaining in the third quarter, leads the way with 72 tackles. He has 34 solos, 31 stops for minus yardage, 7 sacks, an interception return of 14 yards and two pass deflections.

Junior safety Dameon Willis Jr. and senior safety Mike Gibbons have combined for 89 tackles, including 13 for losses, senior free safety Bryan Fisher has 53 tackles and four interceptions, and junior cornerback Scott Arthrell has four picks. Senior linebackers C.J. Haag and Nick Chapek have been in on 63 and 65 tackles, respectively, with Haag making 19 tackles behind the line of scrimmage, recording 6 sacks, recovering two fumbles and intercepting a pass. Probably the most underrated player on the ‘Cats’ D is senior cornerback Tommy Fanning, who always draws the toughest assignment.

“We talked to the kids on Monday about playing 48 minutes like the last 23 minutes we played against St. Xavier,” said Coach Kyle. “That’s how we can play and when we do play like that we’re a championship-caliber team.”

*As for the Players of the Week from the St. Xavier game, the honors go to senior tailback Tim McVey, who scored three of his four touchdowns in the final 13 minutes and is now four TDs away from surpassing the Wildcats’ all-time career mark of 51 set by the great Eric Haddad ’94. On the other side of the ball, the corner is going with the unlimited potential of Kyle Berger, who made 13 tackles, including 7 for losses and 4 sacks.

*LOOKING BACK: On Monday night, the corner took a look some of the most memorable games in the St. Edward-Saint Ignatius series (see Down Memory Lane story below) and to add to that personal touch we asked some of Saint Ignatius’ coaches for a few of their comments on the storied rivalry. Here they are.

Brad Ganor, Saint Ignatius’ head varsity baseball coach and a former football standout and captain for St. Edward in the early 1990s: “I remember that it was always our biggest game of the year,” Coach Ganor said of his football days as an Eagle. “We never made the playoffs, never played in a state championship game, so my sophomore year I was on the varsity and we lost (to Saint Ignatius) 47-0 in 1990. My junior year, we spent the first eight weeks of the season running 47-yard sprints leading up to the game. That year (’91) we beat them, 14-10. Kevin Mayer got hurt a week earlier in a loss to St. Joe’s and Scott Mutryn ended up starting against us as a sophomore. My senior year we had a good class, a lot of athletic kids, but they beat us, 28-0. We could never catch up to them. They were the gold standard. Back then they only qualified four teams (from each region) to the playoffs, so that (the Saint Ignatius game) was our state championship game.”

Coach Ganor emphasized that his most important accomplishment during what was an outstanding baseball and football career at St. Edward was the fact that he met and later ended up marrying the most attractive cheerleader the Eagles ever had – the former Nicole LoBue.

Ryan Franzinger ’02, former football and shot and discus standout for the Wildcats, currently the Assistant to the Dean of Students, Rory Hennessey, and an outstanding assistant coach in football: Coach Franzinger, who played in one-sided victories over St. Edward in his sophomore and junior years, said he will always remember the 44-41 overtime loss to the Eagles during his senior year (the fall of 2001), when the game swung after a penalty wiped out an 89-yard touchdown pass from Nate Szep to Anthony Gonzalez. An official ruled that Nate was over the line of scrimmage when he threw the pass. However, television replays that night clearly showed that Szep was at least 2 yards behind the line of scrimmage. “That loss almost cost us the playoffs and we were the best team, because we won the championship (the Wildcats’ ninth state crown). There is an intensity that sticks out (in the rivalry). I can’t speak for St. Eds, but here at Saint Ignatius we don’t do anything differently for the game. As a coach, we don’t prep differently. We treat each opponent with the same respect. The intensity and effort, that happens on its own. The game has a special feeling to it. What you do notice is that they seem to be the opponent that wants to beat you the most. We feel that if we treated this game differently that would be a disservice to our kids, because next week’s playoff game is more important. The biggest game we have ever played against them was last year’s regional semifinal, because there was more on the line there.”

Terry Fergus ’72: Now in his 18th season as a member of the Wildcats’ coaching staff, Coach Fergus’ most memorable moment stems from the classic 35-34, triple-overtime victory by Saint Ignatius in 1993. However, Terry’s special moment from that game is quite different from what most fans recall.

“I coached Bobby Adams in grade school (at St. James),” Terry said, referring to St. Edward’s outstanding All-Ohio senior quarterback from that season. “So I was conflicted. I wanted him to lose, but I wanted him to play really well. The thing that made me feel good, though, was when I looked across the field when they were trying to hold us off at the end and saw Bobby holding hands with his guys while kneeling on the ground. And I thought, all right Bobby, you got more than football out of it. And that’s what we taught at St. James. Bobby was a great kid and a great athlete.”

As someone who had the privilege to cover and get to know Bobby Adams during my years at The Plain Dealer, I can only echo Coach Fergus’ sentiments. And yes, Bobby had a very special game that night (see the Down Memory Lane story).

Jim Reginelli ’97 and Brian Strauchon ’96: Coach Strauchon, a former football player for the Wildcats and currently a College Counselor at Saint Ignatius who is in his first season as the Wildcats’ secondary coach, points to how amazed he was – as a freshman coming to Saint Ignatius from a small grade school on the East Side, St. Dominic in Shaker Heights – to see how excited everyone got over the St. Edward game. Especially the students from the West Side.

Coach Reginelli: “One of my special memories was the triple overtime game in ’93. I was just a freshman then,” said Reginelli, who went on to become a special-teams standout, a starting defensive tackle and a winner of the prestigious Coaches Cup Award during his varsity career for the Wildcats. “I lost to them as senior in the overtime game in 1996. That game, in and of itself, was kind of a turning point for us because that was the first year in quite a while that the Cats had lost two games (during the regular season). It was a nine-game season that year, with only four teams making the playoffs (in each region). So after that game we actually had to go down to Cincinnati and pull out a victory over St. Xavier in order to make it (to the playoffs). It (the overtime loss to St. Edward) ended up pulling us together, marching us through the playoffs and into the state game. And obviously just the emotion around the St. Edward game, with fans lined up down Lorain Avenue at 6 in the morning trying to get tickets. That always brings a special element to the game as well.”

We’re rounding the corner and letting the more than 4,000 fans that either listened to the SIBN broadcast of the St. Xavier game live, or took it in over the archive, that John “The Governor” Fanta can’t thank you enough for your support.

****And don’t forget that Coach Mike McLaughlin’s varsity soccer team (14-0-3) will face the Valley Forge Patriots on Wednesday (tonight) in a district semifinal match on Wasmer Field. The action begins at 7 and the corner and the SIBN will have the coverage for you. Now I’m going to get a few hours of sleep and then remind you again about soccer, Thursday night's freshman football game against St. Edward and Saturday morning’s JV football game versus the Eagles.

As the great and late Hymie Williams used to say on his legendary Canton radio show – “Good Bye until the next time, which will be the best time.”