Hilltopper boys volleyball ready to spike their way to success

Chardon will be led by alum Coach Bryan Sutton, a 2001 graduate, who has served as an assistant coach on the girls’ varsity team in the past two years.

“I’m never been the head coach before,” he said. “I am excited and want to do the best job and want people to be proud of us and we are going to go big or go home. We are going to make a spectacle on Friday evening. I am pumped for Nordonia to be there and will acknowledge them as well. I am just ready for this season to start because it has been a long four months and I am ready for these boys to play and make some noise.”

It is the first season in the State of Ohio the Ohio High School Athletic Association approved boys volleyball to become a state-sanctioned sport.

According to the first-year coach, the wheels were set in motion for Chardon to build a boys’ volleyball team after the girls defeated Western Reserve Conference rival Kenston last season, completing an undefeated conference record to capture their first league title since 2005.

“Joe Evans and Logan Bryant came up to me and they found out about the OHSAA and that this would be the first sanctioned season and said we want to get a team together and I said okay that’s great,” Sutton said.

Sutton added it took only 48 hours for him to compile a list of interested student-athletes and present his case to Chardon’s athletic director, Doug Snyder, earning board approval in December 2022.

Although the boys volleyball team has not been officially recognized as a varsity sport by the school board, it will don the red, black and white and be eligible to compete in the Division II state tournament.

Sutton was introduced to the sport in his freshman year at Chardon, working as the scorekeeper for then-Coach Julie Pavolino’s squads.

He began competing in volleyball as a libero, joining a pick-up league that competed every Sunday in the Chardon gym.

“It was just something I picked up and fell in love with and was something I wanted to play,” he said. “I looked forward to every Sunday going to that open gym and any time I wanted to play I could play.”

Following his college graduation, Sutton became an assistant coach for the Eastside Cleveland Volleyball club team, based out of Mentor, in 2008 under current Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin Coach Tom Ray.

Shortly after, he joined Ray’s staff at NDCL, starting out as the junior varsity coach then advanced to become a varsity assistant coach.

Sutton coached at NDCL for five seasons, including during the Lions’ consecutive Division II state title campaigns in 2014 and 2015.

“My first two years we would lose to Lake Catholic in the district final,” he said. “When we finally won against Lake Catholic, we went all of the way and won back-to-back state titles and the experience for myself as a coach and for my family, that is a memory that I will never forget.”

Sutton resigned after the second state championship season to focus on spending more time with his family but started feeling the itch to coach again before the 2021-22 season.

With both of his children in the Riverside school district, but still being a resident of Chardon, he reached out to both schools for potential coaching spots on the varsity team.

Following the Hilltoppers’ adding him to the varsity staff under Coach Alison Fisher, Sutton saw Chardon compile a 44-7 record, capture a WRC banner and become Division I district champions in each season, making school history.

“It was one of my proudest moments to be a part of it, knowing that all of the hard work paid off,” he said. “Knowing that we did something and we put a stamp in school history and a stamp on the banner, it is a proud moment to experience something like that.”

Following the school board’s approval, the Hilltoppers used a creative fundraiser to raise money for a full season.

The team spray-painted a toilet the color red, installed it on someone’s yard, then charged $20 to the homeowner to have it removed or $40 to move it somewhere else of their choosing.

That one toilet was an instant hit in the community and in only two months. the team raised enough money to fund a season.

“The community has just really kicked in and that is another thing that is surreal. I cannot believe we raised the money that quickly,” Sutton said. “I am so excited and just so proud of what we have accomplished in a little more than two months.”

The team will field 13 players and compete as an independent because it is the only school in the WRC that will have a boys volleyball team for the spring season.

Some of the first members of the team include Evans, the place kicker for the 2022 Division III regional runner-up football team, and Nolan Kirsh, starting pitcher of the 2022 Division II state title winning baseball team.

The 6-foot-3 Kirsh will still pitch but will split his time between volleyball and baseball this season, serving as an outside hitter on the court.

“Nolan is putting in extra work not only playing baseball for a state championship team and as a senior he is playing volleyball as well and his potential is through the roof in volleyball and he is falling in love with the sport,” Sutton said.

Sutton acknowledged that in lieu of the excitement surrounding the new sport, his team still has lots to learn.

“These guys are fresh, they do not know the game and do not know rotations and as much as they practice hitting. It is not about hitting,” Sutton said. “It is about passing the ball and setting the ball and then you can hit. They are learning the game like the girls learned the game when they were 10-years old but are learning it at 16, 17 and 18-years old.”

For Sutton, it is a dream come true to be the first boys’ volleyball coach in school history for his alma matter.

He said he is looking forward to the opportunity to help his players fall in love with the sport the same way he did when he was their age and give them the opportunity to actually compete for their school.

Sutton added there has been plenty of support from the girls who have lent their spare time to come to practices and open gyms, helping get their male counterparts up to speed.

“The boys want help from these girls and want them to be a part of it,” he said. “Having the girls support us is one of the number one reasons why we will be successful.”

Sutton said the team aspires to leave its mark not just for this season, but for the following years.

“They are going to make a huge impact and make such an impact that next year there will be three times as many people trying out,” he said. “They are going to see what this sport brings being in a gym and the excitement. If you hit a home run, the crowd goes nuts but in the gym, when you put the ball down on a 10-foot line, the gym is going to erupt and it will fuel this program.”