Fronza scored eight (8) points for his team as the Tigers finish regular season 10-0
We talk more about specialists and offensive linemen than most publications. Why? It takes excellent performance in all three phases of football to win your school a championship. Just like a quality financial institution, you don’t want to entrust the outcome of your game (or the safety of your investments) to a coaching staff (or bank) which “big pictures” performance issues and fails to “sweat the little details.” It is the little stuff which will end up killing you the closer you get to Kroger Field and the state championship game. Hank Fronza doesn’t just have one of the coolest surnames in the KHSAA (We call him “The Fronz” around the magazine; but, then again, we’re pretty ancient), but he is among the more reliable performers at what he does best, place-kicks and punts. Enjoy this feature about “The Fronz” with the knowledge, if you’re a Murray High Tigers fan, that these duties (punting and place-kicking) have been left to the best man possible to fill those roles.
HB Lyon, Scouting Director, “KPGFootball”
The Bank of Cadiz & Trust Company, based in Cadiz, Kentucky, was founded August 7, 1970. The bank obtained trust powers in 1978.
It is a locally owned, independent bank which has expanded, through the years, to locations in Hopkinsville and Murray in addition to Cadiz. The Bank of Cadiz & Trust Company has focused on community finance and dealing face-to-face with both families and small-business owners while fulfilling customer needs and the dreams of area families and businesses regardless of size or construct.
We, like our area schools, strive for high performance and finding ways to prosper in an ever-changing economic environment. The Bank of Cadiz & Trust Company remains committed to superior performance goals coupled with an exceptional quality of customer service.
A local, young, high school athlete who also renders superior performance while achieving exceptional quality is Murray High’s, Hank Fronza. Fronza is this week’s Bank of Cadiz & Trust Company Superior Performance, Exceptional Quality Player of the Week.
The Bank of Cadiz & Trust Company…committed to superior performance with an exceptional quality of customer service
Friday Night Fletch
Murray, KY: There are certain things which tend to show age. One of those is discussing your all-time favorite TV, comedy series. First of all, I just loved the movie “American Graffiti.”
American Graffiti came out in theaters in 1973. It starred some of the same actors and actresses as a show which would air on ABC (American Broadcasting Company) a year later, in 1974, titled, “Happy Days.”
The Fonz, Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli, also known as “Fonzie,” was a character played by Henry Winkler. We don’t know this to be completely true but believe the Fonz was loosely based on Paul La Mat’s portrayal of a character in American Graffiti named John Milner. Both of these guys were incredibly cool, a tad older and more worldly than the people with whom they regular associated, nearly irresistible to women, and really good working on cars (mechanically).
The Fonz was originally a secondary character, but was soon positioned as a lead character when he began surpassing some of the main characters in popularity. The same can be said about punter/place kickers.
Specialists are assumed secondary characters until chance or fortune puts their performance firmly in the limelight, with the game on the line. It is then the specialist tends to gain in popularity by either shining or flopping. It is then the successful conversion of the specialist’s appointed duty appears as popular as the QB’s performance.
What a specialist does, very often, determines the outcome of games. The Fronz scored, on average, 6.6-points a game this season. The farthur in the playoffs a team advances the more important 6.6-points tends to become.
Murray has quite a specialist in Hank Fronza. We call him The Fronz around the offices of KPGFootball. We aren’t the least bit reticent to admit he is among our very favorites at the PK/P position among western KY specialists.
First of all, the Fronz, an all-district soccer performer for his Murray High Tigers, is built similarly to a linebacker. Fronza is 6’1,” 216-pounds, with a 4.8-second, 40-yard dash and a 3.3 GPA.
Go on and rush that punter or kicker, boys! If he doesn’t either out-athlete or outsmart you, Fronza may just physically whip you.
You have been fairly warned. Rush him at your own peril.
Fronza had a big game in the regular season finale against another set or Tigers, this one from Princeton, a.k.a. Caldwell County. Fronza was eight (8) for eight (8) on PATs in route to his team winning the game 56-16 and finishing the regular season 10-0 with the third highest RPI in the KHSAA at the 3A classification.
The Fronz is a soccer star as well as a punter/place kicker on a 10-0 football team
Friday Night Fletch
Going undefeated is a difficult task and a regular season which should neither be overlooked nor discounted. Murray is one of only four (4) 3A teams, across the Bluegrass, to accomplish it (the others were Christian Academy-Louisville, Lloyd-Memorial, and Glasgow).
Murray will open its playoff run against district two, Adair County. The game will be this coming weekend in Murray. Adair enters the first-round game 3-7 overall and 2-3 in second district games.
The playoff paths look as though Murray and Glasgow may meet for the Regional Championship, should the early rounds hold to form. That game would also be played at Murray’s Ty Holland Stadium.
Should it go as planned, both Murray and Glasgow will enter that game with 12-0 marks and playing for a trip to the classification’s final four. Two (2) 12-0 teams fighting to advance; well, it just doesn’t get any better than that!
The game between Murray and Glasgow will pit two teams against the other both featuring among the commonwealth’s more potent attacks on two different sides of the football. Murray has one of the more potent offenses in the Bluegrass. Glasgow may have Kentucky’s finest high school defense at any level.
First things first; of course, both teams will have to play these playoff games one at a time. You get caught looking ahead this time of year and, the next thing you know, you’re in the lay-up line practicing your cripple (or crip) shot.
Either way you cut it, match ups late in November through the first week of December often turn on a missed PAT here, a flubbed punt there. Games between two teams as good as it gets across Kentucky will often turn on the play of the third phase of football, the specialists. Guys like Murray’s The Fronz win games. Less cool customers lose them.
When the day finally arrives where Murry High has to trot out its specialist to either win or lose a ball game; KPGFootball likes where Murray is sitting with Hank Fronza, a.k.a. The Fronz. As The Fonz might say were he here with us, right now…Ayyyy!
We can’t make it any simpler than that. We’ll see you at the game!
This is Friday Night Fletch, reporting for KPGFootball, reminding you to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE!
If you enjoyed this article and wish to gain full-access to the site, then subscribe monthly to Kentucky Prep Gridiron by following the prompts!
© The information contained on this site is the copyrighted intellectual property of KPGFootball. Any unauthorized dissemination of this material without the author’s express written consent is strictly prohibited!
Leave a Reply