News-Herald Senior Bowl: Wickliffe trio appreciates final game together

Fifteen years had separated playoff berths for Wickliffe’s football team when the Blue Devils qualified for the postseason in 2016.

A year later, Wickliffe did its breakthrough season one better. The Blue Devils won another eight games and added a playoff victory on top of them with a 25-22 triumph over Grand Valley in a Division IV, Region 17 quarterfinal.

Offensive linemen Jared Szinte and Dom Liuzzo and running back Nick Fenton were among those at the core of Wickliffe’s outstanding season. Szinte heads to Notre Dame College to play football this fall, Liuzzo will play at Heidelberg and Fenton will attend Lakeland Community College.

At the News-Herald Senior Bowl on June 15 at Mayfield, the three Blue Devils will end their high school football careers together. Their anticipation for the game is easily understood.

“Last shindig with my brothers, you know?” Fenton said. “We’ve grown up playing together since midgets. Middle school, going 7-0 in eighth grade, all through high school we’ve built a huge bond together so this last game, playing together with these guys, it means everything. Last game with your brothers, man.”

Fenton, Liuzzo and Szinte will compete for a final time as teammates as members of the White team when the Senior Bowl kicks off at 7 p.m. June 15. Liuzzo and Szinte led an offensive line that helped Fenton record back-to-back 1,000-yard rushing seasons as a junior and senior.

Szinte and Liuzzo have been on the same offensive line since they were in middle school. Alongside the senior class in 2016, the Blue Devils believe their success derived from bonds between teammates.

“I would say a lot of it had to do with being close,” Szinte said. “The grade above us was really close, that core group of guys, even with us. I think, even with us being like that also, that’s what made it all happen.”

Liuzzo points out he and his teammates are essentially neighbors in Wickliffe. Where the Blue Devils come from helped shape their relationships.

“It’s because we’re such a small town,” Fenton said. “Even if we don’t want to see each other, we’re going to end up seeing each other because we’re such a small town.”

When the Blue Devils take the turf at Mayfield Wildcat Stadium June 15, they embody their own achievement as all-stars. They’re also a representation of what they helped their school accomplish.

“Winning in itself at Wickliffe wasn’t a real big thing,” Liuzzo said. “Our first two years we won what, five games combined?”

Seventeen wins and a playoff victory later, the perception of Wickliffe’s football program has drastically changed.

“People, when they saw Wickliffe on the schedule the next week, they were happy because they knew it was a guaranteed ‘W,’ ” Fenton said. “We kind of changed that, we kind of mixed it up and made people think ‘OK, we’ve got to really prepare for these guys. These guys aren’t the same Wickliffe folk we’ve been playing the last few years. These guys, they’re something special now.’ ”

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