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Blue Devils feel right at home

LISBON — For the most part, practices for the 38th annual Penn-Ohio Stateline Classic have felt reassuringly familiar to the players from Lisbon.

The Blue Devils will be represented by six players (Jason Thompson, Colin Sweeney, Jake Liberati, Bailey McCullough, Seth Davis and David Toot) as well as head coach Jim Tsilimos and his staff when the Ohio All-Stars try to make it two in a row over Pennsylvania Thursday night at Geneva College.

“We’ve been with Coach Tsilimos and the other coaches for the last four years, so it’s really exciting to play one more game for them,” Liberati said. “It’s been a lot of fun.”

“It feels like our season never ended,” Thompson said.

Playing in Thursday’s game is a final reward for the Blue Devil seniors who were an integral part of the school’s most successful two-year stretch in over a decade. Lisbon went a combined 18-4 over the last two seasons, with back-to-back state playoff appearances. This past season, they captured their first conference title since 1999.

“It’s been fun coaching these guys again,” Tsilimos said. “You could tell going back to seventh grade that they were going to be successful. They stuck together when they got to high school and did the necessary things to get better. It’s been a special group.”

Tsilimos said Sweeney and Thompson will both see all of their action on the offensive side of the ball at quarterback and running back, respectively. They will be running the same triple-option based attack that the Blue Devils used on their way to the Inter-Tri County League White Division title this year. Liberati will also be used mostly on offense at guard.

The players said the familiar terminology has made practice much easier.

“It’s been nice, it’s pretty much all the same stuff,” Sweeney said. “It allows me to be a coach along with my coaches.”

“We’ve kind of been able to help some of the other kids along,” Liberati said.

For Sweeney, who will continuing his football career at Geneva College in the fall, Thursday’s game is his first chance to play on a field he hopes to be spending a lot of time on over the next four years.

“As soon as I visited there I fell in love with the campus and the coaching staff. Thursday feels kind of like my debut,” Sweeney said. “It’s nice because they run the same offense that we ran at Lisbon. As a running quarterback, it’s my favorite type of offense to run.”

The Blue Devils said that what they will remember most about playing for Tsilimos is the practices, which have taken on a familiar tone over the last couple of weeks.

“Our practices were definitely memorable,” Thompson said. “Coach Tsilimos brings a lot of enthusiasm.”

“He constantly makes these comments that are always fun to laugh at,” Liberati said.

“It’s been a lot of fun being around not just the Lisbon players, but all of the players during practice,” Tsilimos said. “We’ve been kidding the heck out of them. I think everyone’s having a good time.”

While getting to play one more time with each other has been fun, the Blue Devils also said they’ve enjoyed getting to know some of their opponents from the past few years.

“It’s nice to play with some of the kids that beat the heck out of us, especially the South Range kids,” Thompson said.

“Bonding with some of the other guys has really been fun,” Sweeney said. “Some of these guys, I’ve never talked to in my life because I was just kind of in my small circle at Lisbon. Now I’ve made a lot of friends from the past two all-star games. When you put a bunch of all-stars together, things seem to click pretty well.”

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