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Not a lot of people can call themselves state champions.
But many people in the Grand Lake area can.
It was another fruitful year on the local sports' scene as a number of teams and individuals had success.
Here's a look back this year's top 10 moments.
Marion Local's Marcus Billerman (66), Kollynn Meier (64) and Blake Schwieterman (26) douse head coach Tim Goodwin with water in the closing seconds of the OHSAA Division VII State Football Championship on Saturday at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton.
Marion Local football coach Tim Goodwin recalls the a record-setting run that saw Cleveland St. Ignatius capture 11 state championships from 1988-2011.
"I'm a football guy, so I know what St. Ignatius has done - just the absolute dominance they had in the mid-to-late 80s and 90s. I grew up with a dad (Hall of Fame coach Bill Goodwin) that took me to a lot of football games, a lot of playoff games. I knew the history and I saw those Ignatius teams," said Goodwin on Dec. 7 in Canton.
Goodwin's program has been rather dominant, too.
On that December morning at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium, Brandon Fleck rushed for 133 yards and three touchdowns as Marion Local matched St. Ignatius' OHSAA all-time record with a 28-6 win over Lucas in the Division VII championship game.
The Flyers held the Cubs' wing-T offense to just 192 yards - the majority of which came through the air. Marion, meanwhile, racked up 292 yards of offense en route to winning its 11th crown in 14 championship appearances.
"When we were little kids, we were blessed enough to watch the older kids go compete for championships," said Marion Local quarterback Kyle Muhlenkamp. "You kind of set that goal for yourself, like 'Wow, I want to do that.'"
Now they've done that - and the Flyers reached 11 titles a little faster.
Even when the numbers leading up to the state cross country race suggest the Minster girls are a lock to win it all, Wildcats coach Jessie Magoto never comes out and says it will definitely happen.
But everyone else is definitely thinking it.
For a fourth straight season - and the 13th all-time - the Wildcats ran their way to a state team championship. Led by Ella Boate (10th place) and Taylor Roth (17th), Minster (79 points) held off West Liberty-Salem (89) and Fort Loramie (90) for the team title.
It was the school's 37th state championship. Girls cross country has accounted for 35% of them.
"No matter what we do, I don't want these girls to just be judged on winning," Magoto said. "The older I get, the more emotional I get about that. Kids get a lot of pressure to go out there and win, and I want them to go after it and leave it out there, but they're champions no matter what."
The Minster girls basketball team defeated Ottoville 53-37 to complete their run to a second straight Division IV state championship in March at the Schoettenstein Center in Columbus.
Janae Hoying scored 19 points and Courtney Prenger netted 16 as Minster outscored Ottoville by 20 over the final three quarters in a rematch of the 2018 title game.
"Today was the last game anyone in the state of Ohio could play in," Prenger said. "You can't ask for anything else but that."
The Wildcats locked up their fourth crown in girls basketball, and they became the first MAC girls team to win consecutive titles since Fort Recovery in 1990-1991.
Minster finished the year 28-1 while improving to 4-0 all-time in state championship games.
"The last two years, I honestly think we've played pretty good basketball on this floor," Minster coach Mike Wiss said. "I'm really pleased with how our girls handled this weekend. It's a lot of fun. They have a lot of fun together, but they really know when it's business."
On March 1, St. Marys won the Division II girls bowling championship.
A day later, the Roughrider boys made it a St. Marys' state sweep at Wayne Webb's Columbus Bowl.
The Roughrider girls reached the qualifying round as the top seed and then battled their way through three match-play contests. Jaden Gibson's final strike in Game 4 of the championship series clinched a 3-1 victory over Bryan to give St. Marys its first state title since 2011.
St. Marys had three second team All-Ohio honorees in Gibson, Dorian Regedanz and Sara Hardin.
"It was a whole team effort with girls making shots when we needed them," assistant coach Karl Dammeyer said.
After winning the Division II state boys title in 2017, the Roughriders failed to qualify for the match-play round at state in 2018.
They earned the fourth qualifying spot in 2019, and couldn't denied in match play.
St. Marys won back-to-back five-frame matches with Harrison Central and Woodridge to open the championship round before sweeping Jonathan Alder in the finals.
Junior Hurley led the Roughriders with a 17th-place finish in the individual standings.
"Woodridge was the second-best team there," St. Marys boys coach Scott Ross said. "I felt if we beat them, we had a good chance of winning the finals. A couple kids came up big. Junior Hurley came up big and Gunner Kruse came up big."
The New Bremen volleyball program is like a family.
They have a love for each other and a love for winning, too.
In November, Diana Kramer's Cardinals claimed their second title in a three-year stretch by defeating neighboring Fort Loramie 28-26, 25-20, 24-26, 25-20 at the Wright State University Nutter Center.
"Every single one of these girls have been with me for three years," said Kramer while sitting next to a handful of her players in the postgame press conference. "They're like my kids and I just love them."
"We love you, mom," a few players to her side said.
Along the tournament trail, New Bremen, ranked second in the final state poll, defeated No. 1 St. Henry, third-ranked Tiffin Calvert and fourth-ranked Monroeville before meeting fifth-ranked Fort Loramie.
Returning to Fairborn a year after falling short in the title game against Tiffin Calvert, New Bremen defeated Fort Loramie for a second time this season. Macy Puthoff led the Cardinals with 13 kills in the contest. Josie Reinhart and Taylor Paul added 10 kills each.
"It was a great match," Kramer said. "It was a lot like I expected, a lot of back and forth, a lot of lead changes, big time plays on both sides, and it just came down to the team that made fewer mistakes at the end. We turned our defense into offense in the end and found a way to capitalize. Ultimately, an aggressive serve won the match for us. I know we talk about that all the time, but an aggressive serve got them out of system and that led us to a state championship today."
In 2018, the Coldwater baseball team finished runner-up to South Range in the Division III state championship.
That, however, wasn't about to happen in 2019.
"The last class told us probably a day after we lost to South Range last year, 'Guys, it'll feel so much better if we came out on top in our last game," said Coldwater All-Ohioan Jake Wenning. "Our motto this whole year has been 'Finish strong.' "
They did just that.
Wenning pitched a complete-game four-hitter, and he scored what ended up being the winning on Jake Hemmelgarn's fourth-inning single in a 1-0 victory over Ridgewood for the D-III crown at Akron's Canal Park.
Ridgewood pitcher Koelten Smith held Coldwater hitless over the first three innings, but Wenning got the first Cavalier hit in the fourth. He moved to second on Noah Miller's ground ball and scored on Hemmelgarn's line-drive single to center.
The Brian Harlamert-led Cavaliers capped another great season with a 27-6 record and winning the program's seventh state title in 21 appearances. The Cavaliers also won state in 1983, 1984, 1987, 1990, 1992 and 2014.
"It's just special for all of us," Harlamert said. "I'm just a person calling some shots. It's a team effort. It's a staff effort. It's a program effort."
Thirty-three years ago, Mark Esselstein started the Parkway softball program.
And 551 wins later, the Hall of Fame coach finally decided to call it quits.
The reasoning behind Esselstein's decision was to focus on family life with seventh-grade daughter Emerson, a budding softball player, and wife Ann, he said. However, the coach who posted a career record of 551-172 isn't planning a full exit from softball.
"It's not at all that I'm ready to be done coaching," said Esselstein, who continues serving as Parkway Elementary School Principal. "I'm still going to be coaching rec ball in the spring and fall ball and maybe a little bit of travel ball in the summer depending on how things go. It's not like the love is gone or anything like that; it's still there. But it's time to put family first."
The 1976 Alter High School graduate came to Rockford in the 1980s in hopes of coaching basketball. Instead, Esselstein was asked to coach Parkway softball for the inaugural season in 1987. He's been the program's only head coach since then - and the Panthers never had a losing season under his watch.
His resume includes three state semifinals appearances (1997, 1998 and 2013), 13 district championships, 11 district runner-ups and a record 13 MAC championships. The Panthers had 20 or more wins in a season nine times during that stretch, which included a program-best 27-2 mark in 1998.
Esselstein was inducted into the Ohio High School Fast Pitch Softball Coaches Association's Hall of Fame in 2008.
A trip to the state final four had been long awaited for St. Henry boys basketball coach Eric Rosenbeck.
Minster coach Mike Wiss, however, didn't have to wait long for another state trip.
Both coaches guided their teams to state final four appearances in 2019, and they had similar endings.
St. Henry's first trip to the state since 2004 ended with a 57-50 loss to Berlin Hiland. The Redskins had a 16-game winning streak end in front of 11,327 fans at the Schoettenstein Center, finishing the year 24-4.
Rosenbeck has a long list of accomplishments as a coach, but this marked his first state trip. He praised his senior class for finally making it happen.
"You saw the fight of our kids," Rosenbeck said. "Caden Niekamp obviously hit that big 3 late in the game, Jay Knapke's tenacity showed throughout the game and throughout the entire season. Those two, along with Zach Niekamp, Ethan Thieman and Sam Hartings, have given so much to this program. We're disappointed, but I wouldn't want to coach a different group of men."
A week prior, Wiss and the Minster girls won state on that same court. A few months later, Minster's head baseball coach led his other team to state.
After starting the baseball season with a record of 10-7, the Wildcats won their next 12 games and reached state. In the state semifinal, they were shut down by Wright-State commit Jay Luikart, who pitched a two-hitter in leading Jeromesville Hillsdale to a 1-0 victory at Canal Park. It spoiled a solid outing from Minster's Austin Brown, who allowed just three hits in a complete-game effort.
Minster was denied its second state title in the last three years.
"We just ran into a pretty good lefty," Wiss said. "They ran into a pretty good lefty, too, to stop their .390 batting average. But a single, walk, sacrifice, sacrifice, and you're going home. It happens that fast in baseball.
"We've been here enough times in this game, playing in the month of June," he added. "Not a lot of people get to do that. We got a lot out of this group. I'm proud of them."
A group of Celina girls made program history at the state swimming meet in Canton.
First, the 200-yard medley relay team of Kenzie Conn, Claire Gass, Emma Guggenbiller and Kennedy Newell finished sixth. Later, the 200 freestyle relay team of Newell, Guggenbiller, Zoe Rolfes and Conn placed seventh - breaking the school record with a time of 1:38.19. It marked the first time in girls program history that Celina had two relays earn first team All-Ohio.
"We thought it was really cool because we made history today," Conn said. "We were the first girls teams to podium in both relays from Celina. We were really excited about that and we were pretty excited with our overall finishes. We got our PRs today. We broke our school record today."
"Standing up on the podium is honestly one of the best feelings ever," Newell added. "There's really nothing like it. It feels so rewarding."
The St. Henry girls golf team dedicated this season to former coach Gary Broering, who passed away in May after a battle with cancer.
He would have been proud, too.
Early in the season, St. Henry won the inaugural Gary Broering Memorial Tournament at the Elks that was held in remembrance of their late coach.
"This was a special day for our whole team and everybody out there," said St. Henry coach Wendi Moorman, the daughter of Broering. "Most of the coaches knew Dad, so it means a lot being able to win the first tournament. It was an emotional day for our family and for the girls, too, but it feels great to win it."
In his final years as coach, Broering guided the Redskins to back-to-back state appearances. The team finished 12th and 11th, respectively.
This year, Ellen Naumann took second team All-Ohio honors as the Redskins finished a school-best eighth place in their third straight state trip.
"We said at the beginning of the season that we'd like to get to state and finish 10th," Moorman said. "We got to state and finished eighth. It's fantastic."
