Chasing history: Shifflette, Thomas Worthington football seniors there for each other
Wednesday, October 4, 2023
By Michael Rich
mrich@cbussports.com
Thomas Worthington’s Andrew Shifflette comes off the field during the Cardinals’ game with Olentangy earlier this season. Photo: John Hulkenberg
Andrew Shifflette was laying in his bed one early September day in 2022 after surgery to repair a torn ACL in his left knee when his fellow offensive lineman Logan Gardner showed up with a couple of pints of ice cream. Good friends are there for each other when things go wrong.
That’s what makes the Thomas Worthington football team work so well together. The Cardinals, who are 5-2 overall and 1-1 in OCC-Cardinal Division play, are trying to do something the program hasn’t done since the late 1980s … have back-to-back winning seasons.
“He was pretty upset because he loves the game of football,” Gardner, a senior center, said about Shifflette. “Going through that surgery is never easy, knowing it’s going to be a while before you can come back. He’s a lineman, so I thought he’d enjoy some food for some comfort.”
Gardner was there for Shifflette during the rehab process too.
“That’s my guy Logan,” Shifflette, a senior left tackle, said. “He played a huge part (in my recovery). I worked out with him over the summer trying to get stronger and doing my rehab. Whenever I needed someone to talk to, he was always there.”
Shifflette had to watch from the sidelines last season while the Cardinals had their first winning season since 1999 after suffering a torn ACL in his left knee in last year’s season-opener. It took nine months of physical therapy before Shifflette was cleared to play.
This season, it’s been as much mental as physical. But he’s gotten more and more comfortable with his knee as time has gone on.
“It was a matter of getting to trust myself,” Shifflette said. “Pushing myself harder and harder every day really helped get me to where I’m at now where I don’t hardly ever think about it anymore.
“I wear a knee brace now and I think that really helped boost my confidence. But it’s just getting reps and just telling myself, ‘OK, I’m fine.’ The reps were the biggest part … just being able to trust myself.”
It’s been a little tougher to get wins for Thomas this season. The Cardiac Cardinals needed a last second field goal by Maddox LaPrad to beat Beechcroft 27-26 on Aug. 18 and then overtime to beat Newark 36-35 on Sept. 8 and Dublin Jerome 18-17 on Sept. 22.
Shifflette, along with Gardner, senior right guard Josh Innes, junior left guard Liam Farley and sophomore right tackle Marvin Phillips, have anchored an offense that features a freshman quarterback in Grey Kegley.
Kegley is 108 of 187 for 1,180 yards, seven touchdowns and six interceptions.
The Cardinals have run the ball more than last year with senior Isaiah Bowers carrying the load with 652 yards and 11 touchdowns on 124 attempts.
Thomas Worthington’s Andrew Shifflette (left), Logan Gardner, and Francis Brewu are making and impact on the Cardinals’ football team this fall. Photo: John Hulkenberg
“This is the first year we haven’t had to rotate a bunch of linemen,” Gardner said. “We are just a good unit and are working together. It feels good having the same five in there (all the time) – especially (Shifflette) being in there as a captain and a leader.”
Brewu, a Pittsburgh commit, is having a stellar season with 45 tackles, including 19 for loss and seven sacks after playing both ways last year in Shifflette’s absence.
Junior linebacker Tucker Seyfang leads the Cardinals with 47 tackles, senior defensive back Colin Scalise has 45 tackles, six pass breakups and two interceptions and senior linebacker Alaric Lynch has 43 tackles three pass breakups and three interceptions.
“It’s not an easy thing to go through and it’s a challenge to get through,” coach Mike Picetti said. “It’s the first time in (Shifflette’s) life he’s ever been hurt, so he’s not used to that. He put the time in and pushed himself to where now he’s a productive member (of the team).”
Chasing history
This senior class is the first one to go all the way through under Picetti and they’ve helped pull the program out of the dark ages.
Thomas hasn’t had back-to-back winning seasons since Worthington was a one-school district in 1988 and ‘89. The Cardinals went 9-1 in 1990, but had to forfeit five games because of an ineligible player. That ruling also cost them a spot in the playoffs, which would have been their third appearance.
They had seven winning seasons and their first two playoff appearances in the 1980s alone, but since Worthington Kilbourne opened in 1991 just three winning seasons and a pair of playoff appearances in an expanded format in each of the last two seasons.
Thomas endured two separate 17-game losing streaks, first in 2003 and ’04 and then again in 2015 and ’16 and was just 1-31 from 2013 to ’16.
As special as the last two years have been for the Cardinals, Picetti believes the future is even brighter.
“Our numbers overall aren’t very good,” he said. “We’re at 43 (players grades) 10 through 12. The good thing is that our freshman class is very special. There’s 35 of them and it’s the biggest freshman class we’ve had come through here in 20-something years. We have an eighth-grade class behind that’s very good too.
“I honestly believe within two years, we’re going to be very good and it’s because of these kids. For the first time since I’ve been here, we’ve got two back-to-back huge classes coming in with some dudes. And they don’t grow a whole lot of dudes at Thomas Worthington.”
Thomas Worthington’s Francis Brewu watches the action during the Cardinals’ game against Olentangy earlier this season. Photo: John Hulkenberg
‘A mental barrier’
Shifflette made it just two series in the Cardinals’ 44-6 win over Beechcroft in last year’s season-opening game.
“The first two drives went great – I think we scored on both of those drives,” Shifflette said. “We called a screen pass on the third drive. I was trying to kick out the corner (back) and my knee just snapped and I tore my ACL.”
He spent the better part of five months in physical therapy after his surgery on Sept. 5, 2022. He was allowed to run linearly for the next couple months and was allowed to cut when running a couple of months after that.
“It’s definitely a huge mental barrier recovering from a torn ligament in your knee,” he said. “I didn’t realize this, but I hadn’t run in five or six months. I had to almost reteach myself how to run. I looked like a baby giraffe trying to run at first.”
In the meantime, Shifflette wanted to be a part of the team. He knew something special was brewing at Thomas. The Cardinals won six of their first eight games, clinching a winning season with a 35-17 win at Marysville in Week 8, scoring 35 unanswered points in the win. Shifflette and Innes gave Picetti the water bath after the win.
“I was so happy for my guys – I love those guys to death,” he said. “I knew I definitely could have made a difference if I was playing. It did kind of suck not being able to be out there with them. But I was super excited for them.”
Shifflette spent practices helping coach the younger offensive lineman.
“He’s a great kid that works hard,” Picetti said. “Even though he was hurt, he missed maybe two weeks of school and from that moment on, he never missed a practice. He was here every day. He was on crutches at every practice even though he couldn’t be a part of it and he was coaching kids up in the huddle. He took pride in trying to help everybody he could. He’d sit in on meetings (too). He’s a kid that desperately wanted to be a part of it, but couldn’t (physically).”
Shifflette credits the coaches and players before him for teaching him how to be a good teammate.
“You just want to do better for them and show them the right way just like the guys before us showed us to do things the right way,” he said. “A couple of years ago we weren’t where we are now and I attribute that to coach Picetti setting standards and enforcing those standards. (He’s) setting the standard of winning at Thomas.”
There’s a domino effect with injuries. In Thomas’ case, the loss of Shifflette meant that defensive tackle Francis Brewu and linebacker Noah Walters, then juniors, had to fill on the offensive line. Being good teammates, they stepped up.
“Now that (Shifflette) is back, it allows me and Noah to focus on defense,” Brewu said. “It’s huge because we can focus on what our jobs are (on defense) each week. It’s not just the energy part of it. When you come off the field after defense and (don’t) have to go back for offense, you can sit with your coaches and watch film and see what you have to fix.”
For Shifflette and Gardner, supporting the Cardinals doesn’t stop with the football team. If there’s a sporting event at Thomas, chances are, Gardner and Shifflette are there.
“He doesn’t like sitting at home,” Shifflette said. “We go to school with these guys and girls. We’re friends with some of them. So, we got to support them and have a good time.”