Blue Lions advance to state football playoffs
By
Bob Patton-
(Continued from last week.)
McClain had given Wilmington a tremendous game the previous week, but they had no answer for Circleville, and the red and white blew the Tigers out 41-0. The league’s leading rusher, Tony Cooper, of Circleville, rang up 212 yards in 14 carries, an average of more than 15 yards per carry. Cooper’s seven-game total was 1,056 in the 1981 season.
At Wilmington, Coach Bob White elected to test Hillsboro’s rushing defense, and quarterback Greg Nared threw only one pass. Wilmington’s rushers totaled 154 yards on 39 carries, but the Hurricane barely won the game. Hurricane Jim Gibbs had a 73-yard run in the second quarter, setting up a two-yard touchdown run by Nared for the game’s only score, as Wilmington won, 7-0.
Miami Trace trounced Madison-Plains, 23-0.
The next round of SCOL games was Friday, Oct. 23. It saw the vaunted Madison-Plains defense shut out Teays Valley, 13-0. The Vikings had only 113 total yards of offense. Coach Bob Crable, of TV, who was formerly the Plains coach, was hit with two unsportsmanlike penalties in the fourth quarter and thrown out of the game.
Miami Trace traveled to Hillsboro, where they ripped the Indians, 23-9. This was a rather uneventful game, except for a couple of nice field goals – a 21-yarder by Doug Price of the Indians, who had just returned from a serious ankle injury, and a 34-yard FG by Panther Steve Grooms, just before halftime. Both were excellent efforts.
WCH visited Greenfield and hung an eighth straight defeat on the Tigers, 41-0. The big surprise of the evening was at Wilmington, where the tough Circleville defense overcame the Hurricane’s potent offense, and the visiting Tigers took the game, 17-0.
Freshman quarterback Greg Nared ran wide for an attempted pitchout to running back Jon Fox. But it was a poorly executed pitchout. Defensive ace Barry Sealock of Circleville grabbed the loose ball at the 11-yard line and sailed down the field 89 yards for the touchdown that completely demoralized the Hurricane. The Hurricane, who had been inside the Circleville 20-yard line four times in the first half, and got absolutely nothing out of it, made hardly a whimper in the second half. In the final analysis, it handed at least a share of the league title to Washington C.H.
October 30 was the next-to-last SCOL playing date of the 1981 football season. All Washington had to do was win the final two league games of the season against Wilmington and Madison-Plains and the coveted gold football was theirs. Even though Wilmington was fairly tough, that game would be at Gardner Park in WCH. The Blue Lions were very hard to beat at Gardner Park.
Miami Trace made a dramatic fourth quarter comeback against Circleville and won the game, 15-12. This was another very key game in the league.
Hillsboro thumped Madison-Plains, 36-6. In the battle of the have-nots, McClain scored a touchdown late in the fourth quarter to edge winless Teays Valley, 12-10. TV won the battle of statistics in this one, but lost the game. TV quarterback Robert Fetherolf had his best game of the season, completing 11 of 16 pass attempts for a total of 90 yards. McClain quarterback Dusty Miller had one of his poorest games, completing only one of 12 passing attempts with three interceptions, giving him 22 interceptions for the season – a record that probably still stands.
But the Wilmington Hurricane, who looked so futile just a week ago, stormed back to edge the undefeated and state-ranked Blue Lions, 21-20, throwing the SCOL race into a three-way tie. Wilmington had now beaten the blue and white five of the last six seasons.
With only one league date remaining, it was very unlikely that the league race would end in a three-way tie. Wilmington would play Miami Trace, while Washington would travel to Madison-Plains. Both games would have to end in ties for the SCOL race to end in a three-way tie. The odds of that happening were not good. Miami Trace downed Wilmington, 14-10, to drop the Hurricane into third place, Washington scalded Madison-Plains, 29-6, Hillsboro defeated their cross-county rivals, the McClain Tigers, 18-7, and Circleville walloped neighboring Teays Valley, 36-0.
The result of these games meant that state-ranked WCH had to share the league title with Miami Trace, and Teays Valley, whose coach was so full of enthusiasm before the games began, didn’t win a game all season. In the Wilmington vs. Trace game, Nared completed only two of 11 passes for a total of 58 yards, and 46 of those yards came on one play in the opening quarter. Nared was running for his life most of the game.
The final SCOL standings for the 1981 season were:
Miami Trace – 6-1, 9-1
Washington – 6-1, 9-1
Wilmington – 5-2, 6-4
Circleville – 4-2-1, 6-3-1
Hillsboro – 3-4, 5-5
Mad. Plains – 2-4-1, 3-6-1
McClain – 1-6, 1-9
Teays Valley – 0-7, 0-10
On Monday, Nov. 9, 1981, Coach Paul Ondrus of WCH got a call from the Ohio High School Athletic Association informing him that the Blue Lions had made the Division III state playoffs. Thus, the Lions became the first SCOL team to reach the playoffs in the 10-year history of the playoffs. WCH would tangle with West Muskingum of near Zanesville at Lancaster.
West Muskingum was a good football team, but Washington was better. The final score was WCH over West Muskingum, 24-16. The Lions advanced to the second round. This time it would be WCH vs. Hamilton Badin. Once again the Lions were equal to the assignment, and they defeated Badin, 21-7, to advance to the championship game in the Division III playoffs. The opponent, this time, would be Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary.
Jack Walker and I went to this game. It was a cold, blustery windy day in Upper Arlington. There was no protection from the brutal cold. It was April before my feet completely thawed out. But we supported the Blue Lions as if we had lived in WCH all our lives. The Lions were overmatched in this one, however.
They lost the coin flip and everything went downhill from there. Then, senior quarterback Jon Thomas took a hard hit and went down, still in the first quarter. The Irish raced to a 34-0 first quarter lead en route to a 48-7 victory. St. Vincent-St. Mary won the Division III state championship.
The Blue Lions had nothing to be ashamed of. They put up a valiant battle against a much bigger team, and represented the SCOL very, very well. Sophomore quarterback Jeff Shaw, who had very little varsity experience, replaced the injured Thomas in the first quarter. After a somewhat inauspicious start, he performed admirably. He would be an excellent QB for the Blue Lions for the next two years.
The SCOL Fall Sports Banquet was held at Washington High School. Jon Thomas, who led the SCOL in passing yardage for the third straight year, was the first team quarterback and honorary captain of the offensive unit. He was joined on the first team (offense) by wingback Jack Persinger, split end Tim Redman and tight end Chip Campbell, all of WCH. Ty Anderson, Joe Reisinger, Jeff Hughes and Steve Grooms, all of Miami Trace, made the first team offense, and Anderson also made the first team defense. Hillsboro’s Richard Hastings made both the offensive and defensive first teams, and
running back Jeff Jackson of the Indians made first team offense. Indian linebacker Tim Kiefer made first team defense, along with John Enochs and H.R. Core, both defensive linemen from WCH. Steve Grooms of Miami Trace, who made first team offense, also made first team defense as a linebacker. His teammate, safety Mark Gualt, also made first team defense. Circleville had Randy Stevens, Tim Lane and running back Tony Cooper on first team offense, along with Cooper’s running mate Tim Thoma.
Circleville was unquestionably the best defensive team in the SCOL, but they got only two first team defensive picks, Andy Dengler and Barry Sealock. Offensive tackle Bob Regan of Wilmington made first team offense and was also honorary captain of the defensive unit, as a linebacker. The remainder of the first team defense included linebackers Mark Browning of Madison-Plains, Roger Crabtree of McClain and Mike Moss of Teays Valley.
(So, to answer our earlier trivia question: What did head coaches Jim Taylor, Dick Hill and Larry Fouch have in common? All three were McClain High School graduates.)
Bob Patton is a Highland County sports historian and a contributing writer to The Highland County Press.[[In-content Ad]]
McClain had given Wilmington a tremendous game the previous week, but they had no answer for Circleville, and the red and white blew the Tigers out 41-0. The league’s leading rusher, Tony Cooper, of Circleville, rang up 212 yards in 14 carries, an average of more than 15 yards per carry. Cooper’s seven-game total was 1,056 in the 1981 season.
At Wilmington, Coach Bob White elected to test Hillsboro’s rushing defense, and quarterback Greg Nared threw only one pass. Wilmington’s rushers totaled 154 yards on 39 carries, but the Hurricane barely won the game. Hurricane Jim Gibbs had a 73-yard run in the second quarter, setting up a two-yard touchdown run by Nared for the game’s only score, as Wilmington won, 7-0.
Miami Trace trounced Madison-Plains, 23-0.
The next round of SCOL games was Friday, Oct. 23. It saw the vaunted Madison-Plains defense shut out Teays Valley, 13-0. The Vikings had only 113 total yards of offense. Coach Bob Crable, of TV, who was formerly the Plains coach, was hit with two unsportsmanlike penalties in the fourth quarter and thrown out of the game.
Miami Trace traveled to Hillsboro, where they ripped the Indians, 23-9. This was a rather uneventful game, except for a couple of nice field goals – a 21-yarder by Doug Price of the Indians, who had just returned from a serious ankle injury, and a 34-yard FG by Panther Steve Grooms, just before halftime. Both were excellent efforts.
WCH visited Greenfield and hung an eighth straight defeat on the Tigers, 41-0. The big surprise of the evening was at Wilmington, where the tough Circleville defense overcame the Hurricane’s potent offense, and the visiting Tigers took the game, 17-0.
Freshman quarterback Greg Nared ran wide for an attempted pitchout to running back Jon Fox. But it was a poorly executed pitchout. Defensive ace Barry Sealock of Circleville grabbed the loose ball at the 11-yard line and sailed down the field 89 yards for the touchdown that completely demoralized the Hurricane. The Hurricane, who had been inside the Circleville 20-yard line four times in the first half, and got absolutely nothing out of it, made hardly a whimper in the second half. In the final analysis, it handed at least a share of the league title to Washington C.H.
October 30 was the next-to-last SCOL playing date of the 1981 football season. All Washington had to do was win the final two league games of the season against Wilmington and Madison-Plains and the coveted gold football was theirs. Even though Wilmington was fairly tough, that game would be at Gardner Park in WCH. The Blue Lions were very hard to beat at Gardner Park.
Miami Trace made a dramatic fourth quarter comeback against Circleville and won the game, 15-12. This was another very key game in the league.
Hillsboro thumped Madison-Plains, 36-6. In the battle of the have-nots, McClain scored a touchdown late in the fourth quarter to edge winless Teays Valley, 12-10. TV won the battle of statistics in this one, but lost the game. TV quarterback Robert Fetherolf had his best game of the season, completing 11 of 16 pass attempts for a total of 90 yards. McClain quarterback Dusty Miller had one of his poorest games, completing only one of 12 passing attempts with three interceptions, giving him 22 interceptions for the season – a record that probably still stands.
But the Wilmington Hurricane, who looked so futile just a week ago, stormed back to edge the undefeated and state-ranked Blue Lions, 21-20, throwing the SCOL race into a three-way tie. Wilmington had now beaten the blue and white five of the last six seasons.
With only one league date remaining, it was very unlikely that the league race would end in a three-way tie. Wilmington would play Miami Trace, while Washington would travel to Madison-Plains. Both games would have to end in ties for the SCOL race to end in a three-way tie. The odds of that happening were not good. Miami Trace downed Wilmington, 14-10, to drop the Hurricane into third place, Washington scalded Madison-Plains, 29-6, Hillsboro defeated their cross-county rivals, the McClain Tigers, 18-7, and Circleville walloped neighboring Teays Valley, 36-0.
The result of these games meant that state-ranked WCH had to share the league title with Miami Trace, and Teays Valley, whose coach was so full of enthusiasm before the games began, didn’t win a game all season. In the Wilmington vs. Trace game, Nared completed only two of 11 passes for a total of 58 yards, and 46 of those yards came on one play in the opening quarter. Nared was running for his life most of the game.
The final SCOL standings for the 1981 season were:
Miami Trace – 6-1, 9-1
Washington – 6-1, 9-1
Wilmington – 5-2, 6-4
Circleville – 4-2-1, 6-3-1
Hillsboro – 3-4, 5-5
Mad. Plains – 2-4-1, 3-6-1
McClain – 1-6, 1-9
Teays Valley – 0-7, 0-10
On Monday, Nov. 9, 1981, Coach Paul Ondrus of WCH got a call from the Ohio High School Athletic Association informing him that the Blue Lions had made the Division III state playoffs. Thus, the Lions became the first SCOL team to reach the playoffs in the 10-year history of the playoffs. WCH would tangle with West Muskingum of near Zanesville at Lancaster.
West Muskingum was a good football team, but Washington was better. The final score was WCH over West Muskingum, 24-16. The Lions advanced to the second round. This time it would be WCH vs. Hamilton Badin. Once again the Lions were equal to the assignment, and they defeated Badin, 21-7, to advance to the championship game in the Division III playoffs. The opponent, this time, would be Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary.
Jack Walker and I went to this game. It was a cold, blustery windy day in Upper Arlington. There was no protection from the brutal cold. It was April before my feet completely thawed out. But we supported the Blue Lions as if we had lived in WCH all our lives. The Lions were overmatched in this one, however.
They lost the coin flip and everything went downhill from there. Then, senior quarterback Jon Thomas took a hard hit and went down, still in the first quarter. The Irish raced to a 34-0 first quarter lead en route to a 48-7 victory. St. Vincent-St. Mary won the Division III state championship.
The Blue Lions had nothing to be ashamed of. They put up a valiant battle against a much bigger team, and represented the SCOL very, very well. Sophomore quarterback Jeff Shaw, who had very little varsity experience, replaced the injured Thomas in the first quarter. After a somewhat inauspicious start, he performed admirably. He would be an excellent QB for the Blue Lions for the next two years.
The SCOL Fall Sports Banquet was held at Washington High School. Jon Thomas, who led the SCOL in passing yardage for the third straight year, was the first team quarterback and honorary captain of the offensive unit. He was joined on the first team (offense) by wingback Jack Persinger, split end Tim Redman and tight end Chip Campbell, all of WCH. Ty Anderson, Joe Reisinger, Jeff Hughes and Steve Grooms, all of Miami Trace, made the first team offense, and Anderson also made the first team defense. Hillsboro’s Richard Hastings made both the offensive and defensive first teams, and
running back Jeff Jackson of the Indians made first team offense. Indian linebacker Tim Kiefer made first team defense, along with John Enochs and H.R. Core, both defensive linemen from WCH. Steve Grooms of Miami Trace, who made first team offense, also made first team defense as a linebacker. His teammate, safety Mark Gualt, also made first team defense. Circleville had Randy Stevens, Tim Lane and running back Tony Cooper on first team offense, along with Cooper’s running mate Tim Thoma.
Circleville was unquestionably the best defensive team in the SCOL, but they got only two first team defensive picks, Andy Dengler and Barry Sealock. Offensive tackle Bob Regan of Wilmington made first team offense and was also honorary captain of the defensive unit, as a linebacker. The remainder of the first team defense included linebackers Mark Browning of Madison-Plains, Roger Crabtree of McClain and Mike Moss of Teays Valley.
(So, to answer our earlier trivia question: What did head coaches Jim Taylor, Dick Hill and Larry Fouch have in common? All three were McClain High School graduates.)
Bob Patton is a Highland County sports historian and a contributing writer to The Highland County Press.[[In-content Ad]]