Second year Atholton head coach Kyle Schmitt has been named the Baltimore Ravens’ High School Coach of the Week for the fourth week of the NFL season.
Schmitt’s Raiders knocked off then No. 3 River Hill, 10-0, last Friday to snap the Hawks’ 48-game winning streak over Howard County opponents.
The win also broke the Columbia school’s 13-game losing streak to River Hill and it was the first shutout suffered by the Hawks since 2001.
“It was a tremendous win,” Schmitt admitted, “not only because of who we beat or the streaks we broke, but because of where we were in the season. It puts us right back in the middle of it.”
Schmitt was an offensive lineman at the University of Maryland from 2001-2004 where he playing in 48 games, starting 27 of them. He was a graduate assistant with the program before taking over at Atholton.
After a loss to Howard last week, the Raiders found themselves at 2-2 and falling out of the county title race. Still, Schmitt looked at Friday’s seemingly impossible matchup as a window of opportunity.
“I told the guys last week that there was no one we would rather play than River Hill,” Schmitt said. “We led them last year at halftime, so we were over the whole mystique surrounding them. We knew we could hang with them.”
Atholton jumped ahead early when junior quarterback Brian McMahon scored the game’s lone touchdown on the opening drive – a 6-yard scramble into the end zone. Kicker Brett Hass added a 25-yard field goal with 15 seconds left in the first half.
The Raiders are now 3-2 overall and in league play and are just a single game out of first place.
Each week during the season, the Ravens honor a high school coach who has made a significant impact on his athletes. Each recipient receives a $2,000 donation to the school’s football program, a certificate signed by Ravens’ head coach John Harbaugh and a specially-designed Coach of the Week hat.
Each winner will be present at the Ravens vs. Saints home game on Dec. 19 for the naming of the Ravens’ High School Coach of the Year.
2010 Ravens HS Coach of the Week Recipients:
Week 1 Steve Turnbaugh Hereford
Week 2 Biff Poggi Gilman
Week 3 Howard Coaching Staff Howard
Week 4 Kyle Schmitt Atholton
