Orange crunch: Maine South’s Schlenhardt known for hard hits and much more

Maine South coach Dave Inserra described senior Matthew Schlenhardt as a player who typically draws multiple gasps from the stands for his hard hits on defense.

Inserra also paid Schlenhardt a compliment that was gasp-inducing in itself.

“He's probably the hardest hitter I've ever coached,” Inserra said.

Considering this is his 26th year on the job, with four state championships, there's plenty of Park Ridge football royalty under consideration for Hawks' hardest hitter of this century. “He's a highlight film extraordinaire,” Inserra said of Schlenhardt. “He's catching the ball, running the ball, tackles for loss, sacks, big hits. There's a lot there.”

On defense Schlenhardt plays outside linebacker, almost like a traditional edge rusher. This season he's added more running back reps, resulting in 230 rushing yards, six touchdowns and a 10.4-yard average per carry.

In the season opener at Batavia, Schlenhardt broke through two tackles on the way to a 65-yard touchdown run. He added a similar 40-yarder against Warren in Week 2. He also became the team's punter this season.

For a while, though, college coaches weren't impressed. While he's certainly not small, at 6 feet, 205 pounds, he doesn't necessarily fit the ideal mold of a Division I outside linebacker.

“It was very slow,” Schlenhardt said of recruiting. “After junior season, I thought I put together a good tape. A lot of coaches were like, 'You're too small for linebacker in Power Four.'”

After going to the North Central camp last summer, he started getting Division II offers from Minnesota State, Minnesota-Duluth and Grand Valley State. When a coach from Syracuse called with a camp invite, he figured it was worth making the trip to upstate New York.

“I went to the camp as a linebacker,” Schlenhardt said. “At a lot of these camps I've been to, the head coaches don't really talk much to parents. Coach Fran (Brown) went straight up to my dad and was like, 'What do you think about him playing safety?'

“My dad said, it doesn't matter, he just likes to play football. So I converted to safety for the rest of the camp and that led to the offer. They were getting almost full, so I was like, 'I'm going to take this.'”

He'll actually be the second college football player in the family. His older brother, J.J., is the field-goal kicker at Northern Illinois, after not kicking until his senior year of high school.

Strong legs run in the family, apparently. Their father played college soccer, and Matthew was converted to punter this season once Inserra and the coaching staff heard the ball explode off his foot.

With all those duties at Maine South, it's natural to ask Schlenhardt if any of those roles is a favorite.

“I like defense more,” he said. “It's more natural to me. With the ball, someone's coming at you. On defense you have more control of what's going to happen.”

With a number of new starters on defense this year, the Hawks gave up 49 points in the opening loss to Batavia but have since won four in a row. Another long run in the Class 8A playoffs appears to be a strong possibility, especially with Syracuse-bound Schlenhardt delivering his own version of the Orange Crush defense.

“He plays with no fear,” Inserra said. “He runs people over, he runs through people. He takes on blockers. You hear the crowd, probably four or five times a game, kind of do the gasp.”

Listen for it during the next couple of months, before Schlenhardt moves on.