Wednesday, February 4, 2026 • Vol. 18 No. 18 • FREE
Cardinal Schools
Postal Customer Local / ECRWSS
POST
OR CURRENT RESIDENT
Community News from Middlefield, Parkman, Huntsburg and Surrounding Areas
PreSort Std U.S. Postage PAID Middlefield, OH 44062 Permit No. 77
Middlef ield Cardinal’s Ivy Kaminski Breaks Millennium Mark Athlete’s Sights Now Set on Program Scoring Record ANN WISHART/KMG
Doug Velasquez will be Cardinal Schools’ head football coach come Aug. 1 and will fill the newly-created position of dean of students at Cardinal High School.
Doug Velasquez Hired as Football Coach, Dean of Students By Ann Wishart ann@karlovecmedia.com
Doug Velasquez, 54, hired Jan. 29 as Cardinal Schools’ dean of students and head football coach, won’t officially begin his duties until Aug. 1. By then, he expects to already know every player in the football program — and a few others, as well. “I’ve just kind of been watching the kids,” he said during an interview Jan. 29. That preparation has included driving from his home in Youngstown to watch students compete in other sports and reviewing video from previous football games. “I’ll probably know the kids before I meet them,” he said shortly after the Cardinal Schools Board of Education voted to hire him. Velasquez currently works as an eighth-grade intervention specialist at South Side Middle School for Columbiana Exempted Village Schools, a position he has held since 2020. His experience coaching high See Valasquez • Page 2
By Cameron Palmer sports@karlovecmedia.com In a 68-28 road Northeast Athletic Conference win at Fairport on Jan. 29, Cardinal junior forward Ivy Kaminski was 22 points away from her 1,000th career point — and she surpassed it, becoming only the second Husky girls player ever to do so. “It’s a really great accomplishment, and I’ve been working at it for a really long time,” Kaminski said. “I give all the credit to my teammates, who really play a big part in helping me achieve this goal.” Knowing a 1,000th point is within reach, it can be easy to become overzealous in trying to get there, so Kaminski said she took a different approach by just letting it happen naturally. “I just wanted to move the ball around and, if I had a good shot, to take those quality looks and see where it gets me,” she said of her mindset. From a coaching standpoint, whenever a big milestone is near, it can also be hard for everyone else to focus on the task at hand – winning a conference basketball game. But Coach Kim Domen didn’t have any trouble making sure the team’s focus was in the right spot because she also had a strategy. “I didn't really tell the team how many points Ivy needed, but I kept in contact with Ivy's mom, Shelby, and we were back and forth for the last couple of days,” Coach Domen said. “I think the girls knew in the back of their heads, but they just needed to go out there and execute for the game. That's exactly what they did.” With Kaminski's 1,000-career-points goal now out of the way, the junior will turn her focus
SUBMITTED
This basket put Ivy Kaminski as the second Cardinal Huskies girls basketball player in the 1,000 point club.
to finishing the season strong with a good run in the postseason. Of course the program’s scoring record, set by all-time leading scorer Lyndsay Cummins, is another accomplishment she's set her sights on — but she knows that'll be more of a goal for senior year. “It’s really exciting (to chase
the program record), but I’m just going to try and focus on finishing this season strong, hopefully go really far in the tournament, and then next season I’ll focus on it, and just play basketball,” Kaminski said. Coach Domen has coached this junior class since its athletes See Kaminski • Page 6
facebook.com/middlefieldpost x.com/MiddlefieldPost