Category: <span>Massillon v. McKinley</span>

Beat McKinley Week Schedule of Events

Monday

  • 12:00 noon to 7:00 pm – Blood Battle, Massillon Recreation Center
  • 7:00 pm – Booster Club Meeting, HIgh School Auditorium; public invited (players, band, cheerleaders)

Tuesday

  • 8:00 am to 2:00 pm – Blood Drive, Washington High School
  • 11:30 – Touchdown Club, Massillon Eagles #190

Thursday

  • 6:00 pm – Massillon vs. McKinley Freshmen Game, Paul Brown Tiger Stadium
  • 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm – Washington High School Open House
  • 7:00 pm – Band Concert, Washington High School Main Gym

Friday

  • 1:15 pm – Rally, Washington High School
  • 7:00 pm – Parade, Downtown

Saturday

  • 2:00 pm – 128th Massillon vs. McKinley Game, Benson Field, Canton

 

 

2016: Massillon 21, Canton McKinley 19

Tigers battle adversity, bring back victory bell

Chris Easterling
Independent sports editor

MASSILLON Nothing seemed too easy for Massillon on Saturday afternoon.

The yards – and the points – didn’t quite come as effortlessly as they had in other games. McKinley, conversely, moved the ball as well as any Tiger opponent had moved it on them in weeks. Nothing, though, is supposed to be easy about a game between archrivals Massillon and McKinley. That’s why the wins are celebrated as heartily as they are, as was the case after the Tigers’ 21-19 win over the Bulldogs in front of roughly 14,000 at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

“That’s a Massillon-McKinley game,” Tiger defensive lineman Malcolm Robinson said. “The thing that won this game for us was that we pulled for each other until the last minute and the last seconds of the last quarter. That’s what this Massillon Tiger football team does. When you do that, you win football games.”

Massillon will now take an 8-2 record into the Division II playoffs, which will start next Friday night at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium. The Tigers, who will be the No. 2 seed, will face No. 7 seed Dublin Scioto, although the official pairings won’t be set until Sunday.

The record will show the winning points for Massillon came on a 10-yard run by Keyshawn Watson – who was making his season debut – with 10:05 remaining. That gave the Tigers a 21-13 advantage. It will also show McKinley had multiple chances to make things even more difficult on Massillon than it already was. The Bulldogs pulled within 21-19 on a 4-yard Dominique Robinson run less than a minute after Watson’s run.

Having already had a point-after kick blocked, McKinley went for the 2-point conversion to try and tie the game. That attempt was fumbled, keeping the Tigers in front by two.

“We were chasing that point from early in the game,” McKinley coach Dan Reardon said after his team fell to 6-4 heading into the Division I Region 1 playoffs. “We had to go for two, and we didn’t get it. When you get behind by a PAT or whatever, you’re always chasing it. That was the difference.”

Likewise, McKinley’s subsequent – and final – drive offered a chance to not just tie, but take the lead. However, a 37-yard field goal try with 4:32 left was pushed right, keeping Massillon ahead.

“It’s all about the brotherhood,” Tiger senior linebacker Jacob Risher said. “We all do it for the guy next to us. We all wanted it as bad as the other, and we pulled through.”

McKinley, despite an afternoon in which it gained 339 offensive yards, never saw a chance to change the score after that. That’s because Massillon milked the rest of the clock by running it nine straight times to end the game. That running game was boosted by the return of Watson, who had missed the first nine games due to
being academically ineligible. The junior, who rushed for 1,000 yards a year ago, gained 167 yards on 31 attempts and scored the Tigers’ final touchdown.
Watson’s effort helped Massillon run for 261 yards on 54 carries as a team. It was Watson’s 35-yard run – with an additional 15 tacked on for a McKinley personal foul – which moved Massillon from secondand-7 at its own 5 to first-and-10 at the Bulldog 45.

That drive, which included a 9-yard Jamir Thomas run on fourth-and-1, culminated in Watson’s scoring run.

“We knew Keyshawn was a good football player,” said Tiger quarterback Seth Blankenship, whose only two completions on the day were a pair of touchdown passes to Austin Jasinski. “We knew he had to change to get back out there. Once he fixed that up, it’s was just Keyshawn being Keyshawn. He didn’t lose any form, because we made him work himself back into it.”

McKinley, which had come into the game having scored just one offensive touchdown in its previous two games, scored one in each of the first two quarters to take a 13-7 halftime lead. The Bulldogs picked up a 79-yard Robinson-to-Prayer Wise touchdown in the first quarter to pull within 7-6, then a 12-yard Robinson run with 9:33 left in the half to take the lead.

The Bulldogs threw virtually everything at Massillon, from Reggie Corner getting his first four rushing attempts of the season – for 62 yards – to a formation where backup quarterback Alijah Curtis lined up by himself behind center, with everyone else lined up in a swinging-gate-like look.

That’s how seven of McKinley’s 11 possessions were able to reach Massillon territory. However, an interception and a fumble lost ended two drives, while the Bulldogs also failed to convert on fourth and-1 at the Tiger 22.

“It was nuts,” Risher said. “All the formations they ran, it was not on film. We watch a ton and a ton and a ton of film. We had to read our keys, learn on the go and we got the job done.”

That’s why, despite all the adversity, the Tigers were ringing the Victory Bell in joy when the game came to an end.


GAME STATS

2015: Massillon 28, Canton McKinley 30

NOT QUITE THERE
Bulldog QB flips into endzone with 20 seconds left, winning game and ending Tigers’ season

Chris Easterling
Independent Sports Editor

CANTON Massillon struck first. McKinley struck last.

That final blow by the Bulldogs also was enough to end the Tigers’ season. Dominique Robinson helicoptered his way into the end zone on a 1-yard run with 20 seconds left, carrying McKinley to a 30-28 win over Massillon in the 126th meeting between the two rivals in front of about 10,000 Saturday at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium.

Massillon, which ended the game at the Bulldog 35 after a reception, would have qualified for the Division II playoffs with a win. Instead, the Tigers head home with their first losing season (4-6) since 2004.

“Our kids fought hard,” Massillon first-year coach Nate Moore said. “Obviously, they’re really disappointed right now. … It’s tough to say goodbye, but you don’t get second chances.”

Robinson may have begged to differ. The McKinley quarterback – who played at Timken last season prior to the merger – had put his team in a 28-24 hole when, while being grabbed by the rushing Tiger defensive line, he threw an ill-advised pass right into the hands of Massillon
defensive end Dakota Dunwiddie.

Dunwiddie picked the ball off at about the Bulldog 15 and returned it for a Tiger touchdown with 3:50 remaining. Three-and-a-half minutes later, Robinson was redeeming himself with the go-ahead touchdown, capping an 11-play, 69-yard McKinley scoring drive.

“I just had to regroup,” said Robinson, who rushed for 50 yards and two touchdowns in his first appearance in the rivalry following the merger. “I had to get back. … When I play, I play for my seniors, and I was leaving them out. I had to get them a win.”

Robinson also threw for 272 yards on the day, while McKinley finished with 292 total passing and 418 total offensive yards. On the go-ahead drive, he hit passes of 18 yards on fourth-and-6 to Shaquille Perry and 13 yards on third-and-7 to Tre’On Vance.

The junior also had a pair of third-quarter scoring passes: 23-yards to Zay’Breyon Perry for a 18-14 lead and 5 yards to Vance – who played at Massillon last season – for a 24-21 edge.

The dramatic finish closed out a game that started with almost as big a flourish. Keyshawn Watson took the opening kickoff for Massillon and, after faking a handoff, raced 95 yards for a touchdown and a 7-0 Tiger lead 15 seconds into the game.

Robinson led McKinley on an answering drive, capping a 10-play, 54-yard drive with a 5-yard run with 7:44 left in the first quarter. He also perfectly executed the swinging-gate play on the two-point conversion, giving the Bulldogs an 8-7 lead.

McKinley led 11-7 after a Sam Snyder field goal, but another big return for Massillon – this time a 40-yard punt return by Lee Hurst II to the Bulldog 31 – set it up to take the lead at the half. Watson capped that drive with a 1-yard run with 8:39 remaining in the half, giving the
Tigers a 14-11 lead.

Watson, who topped the 1,000-yard plateau for the season, finished the day with 113 rushing yards. He accounted for Massillon’s only offensive touchdown of the game with that run, while his rushing yardage accounted for 60 percent of its total yardage.

Massillon only was able to muster 187 yards on 53 plays on the day. It also was stopped late in the first half on a fourth-down play from the Bulldog 11.
“We weren’t able to get into an offensive rhythm,” Moore said. “We missed some throws; we had some missed assignments up front with protection. I think we had some dropped balls. Just can’t do those things.”

What helped the Tigers was their return game. They returned two kickoffs for touchdowns in the game – Deionne Harper’s 89-yard return with 10:38 remaining in the third gave Massillon a 21-18 lead.

Massillon averaged 55 yards on five kickoff returns. Hurst’s big return was the lone punt return.

“Here’s the thing, I can’t tell you how much time we spent on special teams this week,” said first-year McKinley coach Dan Reardon, whose team heads into the Division I playoffs at 7-3.

“We normally spend a lot of time on special teams. We spent extra time on it this week.”

GAME STATS

2014: Massillon 31, Canton McKinley 21

NICE RING TO IT
Victoery Bell chimes For Tigers after 125th meeting with archrival

By Chris Easterling
Independent Sports Editor

MASSILLON It was familiar territory for Massillon at halftime of the 125th game against McKinley on Saturday afternoon at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium. The Tigers were sitting with a lead – a 10-point one, in this case – with a chance to secure the win.

Twice before, though, that halftime lead dissolved into losses. The memory of those games was a big reason why Massillon’s seniors were doing something they had done before at the end of the game as well: ringing the Victory Bell after beating the Bulldogs.

“We had yet to play a strong four quarters of football,” senior running back J.D. Crabtree said after Massillon’s 31-21 win over McKinley. “We really stressed that this week. We stressed that in the locker room at halftime that we can’t come out flat. We’ve been in this situation before; we’ve been up. We have to come out and do our jobs. We came out fired up, and we did what we were supposed to.”

What Massillon did was post its fourth consecutive win in the series against the Bulldogs, including its third straight regular-season win. The win improved the Tigers to 7-3 and sent them packing for Perrysburg to meet the 10-0 Yellow Jackets in a Division II Region 4 quarterfinal Friday night.

While the playoff berth was secured long before kickoff – only the opponent, – Perrysburg or Nordonia was up in the air – Massillon came out looking like a team trying to pull out all the stops on its rivals. The Tigers recovered an onside kick to start the game, although that ended up in a missed 51-yard field goal.

That proved to be the only time Massillon would get inside the McKinley 40 and not put points on the board. The Tigers’ second possession ended with Crabtree scoring the first of his four touchdowns on the day, a 5-yard run with 6:56 left in the first quarter.

McKinley pulled even with Massillon only once after that point. The Bulldogs tied the game at 7-7 on a 3-yard Eric Glover-Williams run with 9:06 left in the half.

Massillon scored on two of its final three possessions of the half, though, to take a 17-7 halftime lead. Crabtree’s 1-yard plunge and Andrew David’s 41-yard field goal with 1 second left in the half provided the Tiger margin.

“We just needed to play our game,” senior running back/linebacker Danny Robinson, whose fourth-down run with less than 40 seconds left picked up the game-clinching first down. “We came in at halftime and everybody knew we were the better team in that locker room. We just needed come out and execute and stop them.”

Massillon grabbed a 24-7 lead on Crabtree’s third score, a 16-yard run just 2:15 into the second half. It was part of the senior’s 34-carry, 131-yard performance.

“The Massillon people would say that’s the J.D. Crabtree they know,” Tigers coach Jason Hall said.

McKinley, though, had a little life left in it. A Lee Hurst-to-Bryce Short touchdown pass in the third quarter, followed by a Hurst quarterback plunge pulled the Bulldogs within 24-21 – after a Glover-Williams-to-Short two-point conversion – with 10:43 remaining.

Both were set up by special-teams plays. A 22-yard fake-punt run by Devion Jenkins helped keep the former scoring drive alive, while the latter was set up by a muffed punt by Massillon at its own 30.

Massillon, though, wouldn’t let another double-digit lead slip by it as it did against Austintown Fitch in Week 6. With a little help from a pair of McKinley penalties, the Tigers marched down the field on their next possession to punch in the insurance score on Crabtree’s fourth score of the day with 9:35 remaining.

“I think we’ve learned from (Fitch) when we had that lead and we lost it,” Tiger senior tackle Devin Williams said. “There’s no point in the game where you should be flustered. … No matter what the score is, whether we’re up, down, it’s always the same.”

Which is why Massillon’s seniors got the oh-so-familiar experience of ringing the Victory Bell again Saturday afternoon.

GAME STATS

2013: Massillon 34, Canton McKinley 7

Blocked kick changes momentum
Massillon’s Dailey returns it for huge TD vs. McKinley

BY CHRIS EASTERLING
Independent sports editor

CANTON McKinley was poised to get the momentum during Saturday’s 124th meeting against Massillon at Fawcett Stadium.

The Bulldogs, despite a one-touchdown deficit, were lining up for a half-ending field goal. They also were in line to get the opening kickoff of the second half as well, which could have completely altered the look of the game.

In one of the most bizarre plays in the series’ history, Massillon took the momentum back from McKinley when Alex Dailey returned a blocked field goal 45 yards for a touchdown. And the Tigers would never let it go in rolling to a 34-7 win.

“That’s something we work on, our special teams,” Massillon head coach Jason Hall said. “Anybody who comes to our practices, the first 30 minutes of the day is just special teams. From blocking to scooping and all that, it’s all built. Not quite rolling around, ball bouncing around like that, but we work it.”

The Tigers were looking at, at best, a 7-0 halftime lead before the field-goal try on a fourth-and 2 from their 20. Instead, Bailey’s return gave Massillon a 14-0 advantage, a multiscore margin it maintained the rest of the way.

“It’s a great feeling, but I’ve got to owe it all to Marcus Whitfield for making the block and Malik Dudley for keeping the play alive,” Dailey said. “He could’ve picked it up, and he probably would’ve been tackled. Instead, he laid a block for another teammate to get it, and their guys just tried to pick it up. In the end, I just ended up with it.”

The sequence all started with the block. With the Bulldogs lining up for the 37-yard field goal try, Whitfield swooped in and got the kick almost before it got airborne.

“It was just a presnap thing,” Whitfield said. “This whole game, I was just wanting to go (all out). That was just one of those things, just a big effort and heart play.”

Things began to get crazy as the ball rolled toward midfield. For a moment, it seemed as if both teams froze, thinking it was a dead ball as would be the case on a blocked point-after touchdown try.

Then, both teams began the wild chase to get the loose pigskin. Massillon’s players were trying to pick the ball up to score. McKinley’s players, instead of just falling on it to lull the half, also seemed to be trying to make a play on the ball.

Dudley and Nathaniel Devers – like Dailey and Whitfield, Tiger captains – both picked up key blocks to keep Bulldog players from getting the ball. Dailey finally got his hands on it, avoided touching his knee to the ground before gaining total balance and racing to the end zone.

“It just uplifted everybody’s spirits,” Devers said. “It was just a (heck) of a play.”

The sequence had a negative impact on the Bulldogs. They would get no points there, then went three-and-out coming out of halftime.

“From an emotional standpoint, it was bigger than the points,” McKinley head coach Todd Filtz said. “That was a devastating blow that we had to recover from.”

And one McKinley never could recover from.

GAME STATS

2012: Massillon 28, Canton McKinley 19

KENT, Ohio — It is one of the best football rivalries in the country, but Massillon Washington definitely had Canton McKinley’s number in 2012. The Tigers defeated the Bulldogs, Saturday, for the second time in three weeks, 28-19, in the Division 1, Region 2 semifinals.

Ryne Moore carried the load for Massillon (11-1), scoring twice on short runs, as the Tigers jumped out to a 28-7 lead, before McKinley’s comeback effort fell short.

Massillon’s senior quarterback Kyle Kempt also threw two touchdown passes as the Tigers won their tenth straight game, dating back to a week two loss to Canton Glenoak.

Top-seeded Massillon advances to next Saturday’s Region 2 Final against 2nd-seeded and unbeaten Toledo Whitmer (12-0), which held on to eliminate Hudson (9-3) 39-28. The winner will advance to the State Semifinals.

GAME STATS

2012: Massillon 37, Canton McKinley 29

THE BELL IS BACK
Tigers jumps to big early lead, hold off late Bulldog rally

Chris Easterling
The Independent

MASSILLON The sound of the Victory Bell hadn’t chimed inside the Massillon locker room in a while. Three Octobers had come and gone without the Tigers ringing the bell.

Yet, shortly after 5 on Saturday afternoon, there was the distinctive “clang,” echoing through a jubilant Tiger locker room at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

The Victory Bell was back in Tigertown, but not without a fight. Massillon jumped out big early, then hung on late to outlast McKinley’s comeback attempt to prevail 37-29 in front of 17,582 fans.

“The bell’s been over in Canton for three years now,” Tiger senior Brody Tonn said.

“Everybody’s saying, ‘You guys ever going to get the bell back? You guys going to get the bell back for your senior year?’ Our slogan all year has been ‘15 weeks,’ but all we focused on this whole week was getting the bell back and beating McKinley for our seniors.”

And Tonn was front and center in helping Massillon, which heads into Saturday’s Division I regional quarterfinal against Nordonia (7-3) at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium with a 9-1 record, end a two-game losing streak overall – and three-game regular-season skid – to the rival Bulldogs.

Tonn threw a 7-yard touchdown pass on a fake field goal to give the Tigers a 7-0 lead. He also caught a 35-yard scoring strike to put Massillon ahead 14-0.

And, for good measure, he turned away a McKinley scoring threat late with an interception in the end zone with 3:15 remaining.

Early on, such late heroics would have seemed unnecessary for Massillon. After all, thanks to three first-half Bulldog turnovers, the Tigers were in possession of a 24-0 lead with 7:42 remaining in the first half.

“When they make a mistake, it just gets us excited,” said Tiger junior Marcus Whitfield, whose 37-yard touchdown catch gave Massillon a 24-0 lead. “We get a chance to punch it down the field and score.”

Even after McKinley pulled to within 24-7 at halftime, many in attendance would have never expected things to come down to a last-ditch heave by the Bulldogs on the final play of the game.

The players wearing the special graphite-gray uniforms – on a day that matched those duds = weren’t surprised.

“Every time we go into the locker room at halftime, we always say to the whole team, ‘It’s 0-0,’” sophomore defensive end J.D. Crabtree said. “You can never give up, especially on an opponent like that. … They’re all extremely fast. We were ready.”

Massillon twice opened up 20-point third-quarter leads – at 27-7 and 34-14. The latter came on the third of Kyle Kempt’s three touchdown passes on the day, this one a 66-yarder to Gareon Conley.

“They were trying two-on-one (Conley) all day, and we got our chance,” said Kempt, who was 16-of-32 for 285 yards with the three scores and one interception. “We capitalized on it.”

McKinley, which will take a 7-2 record into Saturday’s regional quarterfinal at Hoover, used the arm of sophomore quarterback Eric Glover-Williams to mount its comeback. Glover-Williams, who rushed for 141 yards and a score on 27 carries, threw second-half touchdown passes to Jeff Richardson and Chris Prowell-White, the latter pulling the Bulldogs to 37-29 – after a two-point conversion – with 5:04 left.

Glover-Williams completed 15-of-30 passes for 196 yards.

Massillon brings back Victory Bell, tops McKinley

Chris Easterling
The Independent

MASSILLON Halfway through Saturday’s 122nd showdown against archrival McKinley, the Massillon Tigers looked like they were on their way to a rout. The only problem was, nobody told the Bulldogs that fact.

Still, despite a valiant comeback effort by McKinley, Massillon finally got its hands on the Victory Bell for the first time since 2008 with a 37-28 win in front of 17,582 at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

“It’s almost unreal,” said Tiger senior Brody Tonn, who threw a touchdown pass, caught a touchdown pass and came up with a game-saving interception late in the game. “I haven’t beat McKinley since my freshman year. … I’m absolutely just speechless right now. I’m so proud of everybody on this team.”

Massillon improves to 9-1, its best regular-season record since 2005. It is expected to play host to Nordonia (7-3) next Saturday in a Division I regional quarterfinal, although the official pairings will be announced Sunday by the Ohio High School Athletic Association.

McKinley falls to 7-2. The Bulldogs are expected to play at Hoover (8-2) in a regional quarterfinal next Saturday, with the winner of that game to play the Massillon-Nordonia winner in the second round.

The win snapped a two-game win streak overall for McKinley in the series. In regular-season meetings, the Bulldogs had won the last three coming into Saturday.

“I’m happy for these seniors,” said Tiger coach Jason Hall, who now is 3-3 against McKinley.

“It was interesting. We had some people talking before the game, and they asked how many of the seniors had touched the bell. None of them could raise their hand. More of a joy for them.”

The Tigers at one point led 24-0 midway through the second quarter. They turned three McKinley turnovers into 17 points, with Kyle Kempt hitting Tonn and Marcus Whitfield for scoring passes of 35 and 37 yards.

Kempt was 16-of-32 for 292 yards. He finished with three touchdown passes, including a 66-yarder to Gareon Conley to give Massillon a 34-14 lead with 3:39 left in the third.

Andrew David also had a 25-yard field goal in that stretch as well. “When they make a mistake, it just gets us excited,” said Whitfield, whose touchdown catch made it 24-0 with 7:42 left in the half. “We get a chance to punch it down the field and score.”

The first Tiger touchdown, though, came courtesy of a little trickery. The Tigers found themselves faced with a fourth-and-goal on the McKinley 7 on their second possession of the game.

Massillon lined up for the field-goal try. However, instead of placing the ball down for the kick, Tonn – the holder – rose up and fired a strike to a wide-open Malik Dudley for the touchdown.

The Tigers, who initially lined up for a two-point conversion try before taking a timeout, added the David PAT to make it 7-0 with 4:35 left in the first quarter.

“We out and we actually had the check on,” Tonn said. “I looked over to the sideline and coach said, ‘It looks like they’re bringing a blitz, so run it.’ They actually ended up bringing everybody up the middle. Malik Dudley leaked out through the middle and was just wide open.”

McKinley would crack the scoreboard when Eric Glover-Williams hit Chris Prowell-White for a 19-yard touchdown pass with 3:40 left in the half, cutting it to 24-7. It would be one of two scoring connections between the two, as their second one – a 5-yarder with 5:04 remaining – cut the score to 37-29, after Jeff Richardson’s two-point conversion run.

Glover-Williams, McKinley’s elusive sophomore quarterback, completed 15-of-50 passes for 196 yards and three touchdowns. His one interception came with 3:15 remaining, two plays after Richardson had come up with a interception of a Tiger pass.

That interception, though, didn’t end McKinley’s hopes. The Bulldogs got the ball back with 41seconds at their own 36.

A pass interference flag against Massillon moved the ball to midfield on the first play. But McKinley would be flagged for intentional grounding, then throw a harmless incompletion on the game’s final play, setting off a raucous celebration.

GAME STATS

2011: Massillon 20, Canton McKinley 23

Nine seconds changes everything for Massillon

Chris Easterling
Chris.Easterling@IndeOnline.com

The offseason arrived early for the Massillon Tigers. That‟s because the McKinley Bulldogs scored late in Saturday‟s showdown at Fawcett Stadium.

When Alex Winters scored on a 43-yard touchdown run with 1:13 remaining, it seemed to give the Tigers the win, as well as their fourth straight playoff berth. Except that the Bulldogs had an answer, and marched down to get a 4-yard Tyler Foster touchdown run to give them a 23-20 win.

“That was an emotional game,” Massillon coach Jason Hall said after his team concluded a 7-3 season. “You‟re up, you‟re down. Both teams had to handle adversity. I guess from a fan‟s perspective, it‟s everything you‟d want from a rivalry game.”

Except, of course, for the Tigers, a win. And because of that, there won‟t be an 11th game for Massillon.

The last time the Tigers weren‟t playoff participants, it was 2007. And the final score of the Tigers-Bulldogs showdown that day — also in Canton — was 23-20.

Only that one was a Tiger win, in overtime. On this day, the three-point margin favored the Bulldogs.

And because of that, it will be McKinley, and not Massillon, heading to this weekend‟s first round of the playoffs.

“It feels great,” said McKinley safety Ruben Burrows, whose last-play interception sealed the game. “It‟s great. They‟re our rivals. Any time you can stop a rival from doing anything, it‟s amazing.”

The thing was, it could have just as easily been a Tiger player saying the same thing as Burrows was after the game. That‟s because it seemed as if both teams had their chances to be the one ringing the Victory Bell.

Massillon twice took the lead in the fourth quarter. The first came just 36 seconds into the quarter when Tre Hendricks caught a 28-yard touchdown pass from Kyle Kempt to give the Tigers a 14-10 lead.

The second came when Winters ripped off his 43-yard run with just 73 seconds remaining. That put Massillon in front 20-16.

“I thought our kids played tough on both sides of the ball,” Hall said.

The only problem for the Tigers on this day was that McKinley just seemed to have an answer every time. And it wasn‟t the answer Massillon wanted to hear.

So, just before 5 on Saturday afternoon, the Tigers found themselves somewhere they haven‟t been under Hall. That‟s left with nowhere to go after the McKinley game but into the offseason.

For some Tiger players, the reaction was tears. Others reacted with blank stares. Yet others tried to help console their distraught teammates, left with nothing but memories for 2011.

All because the final momentum swing in a game full of them went McKinley‟s way. And it swung Massillon into an offseason that arrived all too early for its taste.

McKinley scores in final minute to top Massillon

Chris Easterling
Chris.Easterling@IndeOnline.com

CANTON A minute-and-a-half can be an eternity in the game of football. It certainly was Saturday afternoon at Fawcett Stadium as Massillon and McKinley met for the 121st time in their storied history, and it ended up costing the Tigers a trip to the playoffs.

In that time span, the Tigers appeared to secure their first regular-season win over the Bulldogs since 2008.

Except that, they didn‟t, as McKinley managed to wrest the Victory Bell back to their side — along with a playoff berth — with a heart-pounding 23-20 win.

Massillon took a 20-16 lead with 1:13 remaining when Alex Winters tore off a 43-yard scoring run. However, Tyler Foster capped a five-play, 74-yard drive with a 4-yard run with nine seconds remaining to put McKinley head for good.

“We had 1:13,” Tiger coach Jason Hall said after his team finished the season 7-3. “We just had to play defense. Unfortunately in a crucial situation, we missed tackles, got a personal foul penalty. … They had a good play call to what we were running.”

Foster‟s go-ahead score was set up by a 41-yard catch-and-run by Jeff Richardson on the second play of the Bulldog drive. Richardson caught an out pattern, then turned upfield, breaking a tackle before finally being dragged down at the Tiger 19.

Massillon, though, was flagged for a personal foul at the end of the play, moving the ball to the Tiger 8.

“I just had to make a big play,” said Richardson, whose five-play, 82-yard receiving day also included a second-quarter touchdown as well. “I saw the corner bite on the pass. He tried to tackle me, and I ran through the tackle and ran up field.”

The frenetic finish was just part of a back-and-forth fourth quarter between the two rivals, one in which each team took the lead twice. Such a finish couldn‟t have been pictured at halftime, when the teams were tied at 7-7.

Ultimately, though, the only lead that mattered came when the scoreboard clock hit 0:00. And that lead belonged to McKinley, which had entered the fourth leading 10-7.

“We were just going up and down the field going, „You‟ve just got to believe,‟” said McKinley coach Ron Johnson, whose team will take an 8-2 record into the playoffs, while he improved his own personal mark against the Tigers to 3-2 while at McKinley. “Our kids did not doubt.”

Massillon took its first lead of the game on its second offensive play of the fourth quarter, when Kyle Kempt hit a wide-open Tre Hendricks for a 28-yard touchdown to give the Tigers a 14-10 lead at the 11:14 mark of the fourth. It was the second wide-open 28-yard scoring pass Kempt threw in the game, as he also hit Winters on one to tie the game at 7-7 in the second quarter.

Kempt was 10-of-18 for 149 yards with two scores and one interception.

“They were playing man defense,” Hall said of the two Tiger touchdown passes. “When you do hit the middle of the field, there‟s no one there. It‟s a track meet. Those two plays, that‟s what it boiled down to.”

McKinley answered with a scoring drive of its own, marching 63 yards in 10 plays to lead 16-14 on a Foster-to-Terrance Burt 5-yard pass at the 7:27 mark of the fourth. The score came on a fourth-down play.

Foster finished 13-of-20 for 144 yards with two TDs and an interception.

“He manages the game well,” Hall said of Foster. “He doesn‟t turn the ball over. For the most part, he had a game-winning drive there and he threw some crucial balls there for big plays.”

The Tigers needed their own fourth-down conversion on what they thought was their winning drive. Facing fourth-and-2 from their own 42, Kempt hit Ernie Baez on a crossing pattern for a 15-yard gain to the McKinley 43.

“We just ran what we call a whip route — misdirection route — to their man coverage,” Hall said. “Ernie got enough space to get open.”

On the next play, Winters ran through the McKinley defense as if it had been parted like the Red Sea. By the time Winters crossed the goal line, the orange-clad faithful in the stands were in a delirium, thinking the Victory Bell was coming back to Massillon.

Instead, it was merely the prelude to one final swing of momentum, one that left those in red and black, and not orange and black, savoring a win on this afternoon.

GAME STATS

2010: Massillon 17, Canton McKinley 40

McKinley keeps bell with 40-17 win over Massillon

By CHRIS EASTERLING
The Independent

MASSILLON, OH – The little things can seem so insignificant when looked at individually. A missed tackle or a dropped pass or a missed assignment or a penalty, all can be looked at as mere bumps in the road for a football team.

On Saturday afternoon, those little things added up quickly for the Massillon Tigers. The sum of those little things was a 40-17 beating at the hands of the archrival McKinley Bulldogs in front of 17,794 at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

“I thought they executed and we didn’t,” said Tiger coach Jason Hall, whose team will take a 7-3 record into next Saturday’s Division I Region 2 quarterfinal, expected to be at Toledo Whitmer (9-1). “We missed tackles. … We shot ourselves in the foot. You can’t have (five) turnovers, which can be put on a lot of things. You can’t take field position. You can’t have personal fouls. You can’t have all the little things that just build up.”

Those little things began to really cause Massillon problems in the second quarter despite its possession of a 10-7 lead on an Anthony McCarthy 37-yard field goal.

With McKinley (8-2) eyeing a fourth-and-10 situation from the Massillon 28, the Tigers were flagged for pass interference to give the Bulldogs new life. On the next play, Massillon was hit with its second straight penalty – this one a personal foul – to put McKinley at the Tiger 6.

Those two Tiger penalties were among the nine they were flagged for in the game, for 95 yards. McKinley, meanwhile, was flagged 12 times for 143 yards. After the two penalties, Sa’Veon Holloway ran it in from there to give McKinley a 14-10 lead – post point-after try – with three minutes left in the half.

Massillon would drive down to the McKinley 8 on its next possession. However, three straight incompletions – including two drops – and a missed field goal left the Tigers with no points to show for it.

“We missed two consecutive big plays down in the end zone, two opportunities to score,” Hall said. “We miss a field goal. No matter what, you want to put some points on the board in that situation.”

McKinley’s defense harassed the Tigers in five turnovers on the afternoon, but none were bigger than Jermaine Edmondson’s two third-quarter interceptions for the Bulldogs. Both turnovers would end up as Bulldog touchdowns – one on a Kyle Ohradzansky 24-yard run; the other on a 19-yard Ohradzansky-to-Malcolm Robinson pass – to put McKinley up 27-10 with 4:17 left in the third.

“The coaches always tell me to be there at the right time,” Edmondson said. “I just jumped on the ball and got the interception.”

The turnovers spoiled what started out like a good day for the Tiger offense. After McKinley scored on its first possession to take a 7-0 lead, Massillon marched right back down the field to match the score with one of its own on a 1-yard Jake Reiman run.

Massillon came out running the Wildcat formation with Devin Smith lined up at quarterback for the first three plays, gaining 30 yards on Smith runs to move to the McKinley 34. Smith, who added 135 yards on seven catches, also had a 33-yard reception on the drive to put the Tigers at the Bulldog 4.

“We’ve been practicing that,” Hall said of the Wildcat. “We’ll mix that in every once in a while. We haven’t used that a lot, but I thought it was time to let him run around.”

The Tigers came into the game knowing they had to shuffle some things around up front due to another injury – or in this case, illness – situation. Kyle Belak, who moved from guard to center in Week Seven due to injury, was lost to a case of mononucleosis in the middle of the week.

Craig Kircher then moved from left tackle to center, while Brian Robinson moved from right guard to left tackle. Tim Dimitroff then moved into the right guard spot.

That line was faced with the challenge of dealing with a highly-regarded McKinley defensive front, led by ends Steve Miller and Se’Von Pittman. Early on, they did just that, as Massillon gained 184 yards in the first half.

The problem, though, was that as the second half went on, the Bulldogs began to get more and more pressure on sophomore quarterback Kyle Kempt. By the fourth quarter, they were able to pin their ears back and really get to the Tiger passer, as they finished with three sacks, all in the second half.

“We just kept playing hard and kept rushing the passer,” Miller said. “We just kept rushing the quarterback and having fun.”

McKinley, meanwhile, began to have some fun rushing the football. The Bulldogs finished with 357 rushing yards for the game, with a pair of 100-yard rushers in Elijah Farrakhan (136 yards on 14 carries) and Ohradzansky (101 yards on 15 carries).

Ohradzansky’s second scoring run may have been the dagger, a 36-yard touchdown run on the second play of the fourth quarter to give McKinley a 34-17 lead. That came on the Bulldogs’ subsequent possession after Massillon had found new life – so it thought – on Reiman’s second 1-yard touchdown run of the game to pull within 27-17.

“It was huge,” Ohradzansky said of the scoring run. “It really killed their momentum. It really allowed us to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to take this thing over and we’re going to end it right now.’ And that’s what we ended up doing.”

GAME STATS

McKinley 40

Massillon 17

at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium

McKinley 7 7 13 13 40

Massillon 7 3 7 0 17

SCORING SUMMARY

McK – Montgomery 38 run (Lioi kick)

Mas – Reiman 1 run (McCarthy kick)

Mas – FG McCarthy 37

McK – Holloway 6 run (Lioi kick)

McK – Ohradzansky 24 run (Run failed)

McK – Robinson 19 pass from Ohradzansky (Lioi kick)

Mas – Reiman 1 run (McCarthy kick)

McK – Ohradzansky 36 run (Lioi kick)

McK – Holloway 1 run (Kick failed)

McK Mas

First downs 20 22

Rushes-yards 54-357 31-100

Comp-Att-Int. 5-11-0 15-36-3

Passing yards 70 189

Fumbles-lost 0-0 2-2

Penalties-yards 12-143 9-95

Records 8-2 7-3

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

Rushing:

Massillon – Reiman 12-50 2 TDs; Winters 5-32; Smith 5-23; Taylor 4-14.

McKinley – Farrakhan 14-139; Ohradzansky 15-101 2 TDs; Holloway 16-80 2 TDs;

Montgomery 5-64 TD.

Passing:

Massillon – Kempt 15-35-189 2 TDs; Smith 0-1-0 INT.

McKinley – Ohradzansky 5-11-70 TD.

Receiving:

Massillon – Smith 7-135; Winters 3-(minus-7); Olack 2-38; Miller 1-10; Kreiger 1-8; Baez 1-5.

McKinley – Robinson 3-56 TD; Sweat 1-8; Foster 1-6.

2009: Massillon 10, Canton McKinley 7

Tigers survive nailbiter with McKinley, win regional title

By CHRIS EASTERLING
The Independent

AKRON, OH — In the span of two minutes of game action Saturday night, the Massillon Tigers took an emotional roller-coaster ride which would have rivaled anything offered at Cedar Point.

But in the end, the ride ended with the Tigers earning their first state semifinal berth in nine years – as well as a ton of revenge – by beating McKinley 10-7 in a Division I regional final in front of an announced crowd of 13,121 at the University of Akron’s InfoCision Stadium.

Leading by three, the Tiger marched 74 yards in 14 plays, reaching the McKinley 6. But with just under two minutes, Massillon fumbled the ball out of the end zone, giving the Bulldogs life at their own 20.

“It was a thriller,” Tiger quarterback Robert Partridge said.  “We just wanted to get down and run the clock out. It was a mistake, but I knew our defense was going to come out and stop them. We have great players on defense.”

McKinley took advantage driving down to the Massillon 16 less than 45 seconds remaining. But faced with a third-and-4, Massillon’s Tyler Miller came up with his second interception of the game – the third for the Tiger defense on the night – at the Tiger 2 with 33 seconds remaining to send Massillon into next Saturday night’s state semifinal against 12-1 Glenville at InfoCision Stadium.

“We put ourselves in position,” McKinley coach Ron Johnson said. “We went down and made plays and got into the scoring zone. We just didn’t finish.” A big reason why McKinley wasn’t able to finish was the Massillon  defense.

After allowing McKinley to score 35 points and rack up 364 yards in the Bulldogs’ regular-season win over Massillon, the Tigers clamped down on the Bulldogs in the playoff rematch. Massillon surrendered just the one touchdown – an 8-yard pass from Kyle Ohradzansky to Angelo Powell with 8 seconds left in the half –
and 219 total offensive yards to McKinley, which bows out at 8- 5.

The Tigers turned the Bulldogs away three different times in the second half after McKinley had reached deep into Massillon territory. Massillon blocked a 39-yard field goal attempt on the first drive of the third quarter, while Miller picked off a pass in the end zone with 8:37 left, then closed out Massillon’s win just over eight minutes later.

“They did have the ball on our side of the field pretty much the whole second half,” Tiger safety Bo Grunder said. “You know, we just have to stay up and stick with what we’re doing, read our keys and make plays.”

Massillon finished with three takeaways on the night, as Grunder also had an interception midway through the third quarter.

“We’re playing good defense,” Massillon coach Jason Hall said. “We’re holding good teams to one touchdown or 10 points.”

Massillon may have felt a bit disappointed only having 10 points on its side of the scoreboard going into the locker room. Of course, that was still enough for the Tigers to hold a 10-7 lead.

The Tigers drove onto McKinley’s side of the 50 on their first four first-half possessions, and inside the 20 on three straight possessions. They were able to take a 7-0 lead when Jake Reiman’s 1-yard plunge capped a 10-play, 69-yard drive at the 3:51 mark of the first quarter.

Reiman matched his career high rushing with his second straight 127-yard rushing performance.

After a missed field goal on its first second-quarter possession, Massillon made it 10-0 on Jeremy Geier’s 21-yard field goal with 4:04 remaining in the half.

The Tigers had 182 total yards in the first half. They finished the game with 269 yards.

“We just executed our plays,” Partridge said of the first-half offense. “We did our keys. Offensively, we mixed it up with the run and the pass. We ran the ball really well this time.”

That was especially true on the Tigers’ fourth-quarter drive which appeared on its way to icing the win. After getting the ball at their own 20 on Miller’s first interception, the Tigers ran it 12 times for 74 – including 11 straight runs after backto-back pass plays left Massillon with a fourth-and-1 at its own 29.

That’s when Hall turned riverboat gambler. Eschewing the punt, he went for it deep in his own territory, getting it when Clayton Mattox fought forward for two yards.

“Everybody keeps asking me about that,” Hall said of the fourth down call. “But to me, it was a situation where after the first McKinley-Massillon game in Week Ten, a lot was said about them winning the game physically. That was our focus. … I think in general, I wanted our kids to win the game, so I put it in their hands because I know they can do it.”

And in the end, the Tigers did just that. Only not before going on one more emotional roller-coaster ride.

GAME STATS

Massillon 10
McKinley 7

Massillon 07 03 00 00 10
McKinley 00 07 00 00 07

SCORING SUMMARY
Mas – Reiman 1 run (Geier kick)
Mas – FG Geier 21
McK – Powell 8 pass from Ohradzansky (Forsythe kick)

Mas McK
First downs 16 12
Rushes-yards 41-178 33-150
Comp-Att-Int 12-22-0 10-24-3
Passing yards 91 69
Fumbles-lost 1-1 0-0
Penalty yards 1-5 0-0
Records 10-3 8-5
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing:
Massillon – Reiman 27-127 TD; Nalbach 2-24; Partridge 6-19;
Grunder 2-10.
McKinley – Wilder 18-89; Ohradzansky 7-61; Farrakhan 7-11.
Passing:
Massillon – Partridge 12-22-91.
McKinley – Ohradzansky 10-23-69 TD, 3 INTs; Team 0-1-0.
Receiving:
Massillon – Olack 7-60; Reiman 2-15; Allman 1-8; Smith 1-5.
McKinley – Powell 3-24; Wilder 3-7; Parton 2-21; Ogletree 1-16.