Santoro, Stamm sign with Tiffin to play football

From staff reports

Pic­tured are Belle­vue High School seniors Jalen San­toro, left, and Trent Stamm, right, who signed to play foot­ball at Tif­fin Uni­ver­sity, with Belle­vue head foot­ball coach Ed Nasonti, cen­ter. (Gazette photo by Brad Frank)

TIFFIN — The tan­dem respon­si­ble for arguably the most mem­o­rable catch in Belle­vue High School foot­ball his­tory will remain team­mates fol­low­ing grad­u­a­tion this spring.

BHS seniors Jalen San­toro and Trent Stamm have each signed national let­ters of intent to play foot­ball col­le­giately at Tif­fin Uni­ver­sity, a Divi­sion II school in the Great Lakes Inter­col­le­giate Ath­letic Conference.

Wednes­day was National Sign­ing Day for all NCAA Divi­sion I and II foot­ball pro­grams in the coun­try, when col­lege and uni­ver­si­ties can first receive signed com­mit­ments from high school student-athletes.

San­toro and Stamm were part of Bellevue’s state runner-up and regional cham­pi­onship team in 2012.

In the Divi­sion III, Region 10 semi­fi­nal game against Perkins in Novem­ber, Stamm caught the game-tying touch­down pass from San­toro with no time left on the fourth-quarter clock.

Belle­vue won the game on a PAT, 28–27, to advance to the regional championship.

The win sparked a run to the state cham­pi­onship game, where Belle­vue had never advanced in pro­gram history.

Tif­fin Uni­ver­sity is a NCAA Divi­sion II school that com­petes in the Great Lakes Inter­col­le­giate Ath­letic Conference.

TU is coached by Gary Goff, who is enter­ing his third sea­son with the Dragons.

“I’m excited about each and every one of the play­ers that we brought in,” Goff said in a statement.

“In addi­tion to be good ath­letes, they are good kids. They are excited to be part of the Tif­fin foot­ball pro­gram. I give the credit to my staff. They did a great job of get­ting out there and bring­ing these play­ers into the pro­gram. We have five play­ers who were con­fer­ence and/or state play­ers of the year. That’s a great accom­plish­ment for our team.”

San­toro is one of the five play­ers, after being named Divi­sion III co-Offensive Player of the Year in 2012. Goff men­tioned San­toro in his state­ment about TU’s recruit­ing class.

“He’s a ver­sa­tile ath­lete who could play at a num­ber of posi­tions for us,” Goff said.

In total, TU signed 25 recruits Wednes­day, includ­ing McComb’s Jerry Brown, the Divi­sion VI Offen­sive Player of the Year.

TU is a pro­gram seek­ing to turn the cor­ner. After an 0–11 sea­son in Goff’s first sea­son, the Drag­ons went 3–8 last season.

Posted by Brad Frank on Feb 6 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.