Author: <span>Eric Smith</span>

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2012: Massillon 34, Austintown Fitch 14

Massillon dominates Fitch in statement game

Chris Easterling
Saturday, October 6, 2012

MASSILLON – The Massillon Tigers wanted a complete game. Through their first six games, they had either had shown up with a big offensive performance, or their defense was the highlight of the night.

But Friday night at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium, they put both offense and defense together. And the result was the Tigers’ most impressive performance of the season in a 34-14 rout of the state’s No. 5-ranked Division I team, previously-undefeated Austintown Fitch.

Consider it a statement made.

“You’ve really got to be proud of our kids and our coaching staff,” Tiger coach Jason Hall said after his team improved to 6-1 heading into next week’s home game against Canadian foe Pauline Johnson Collegiate. “Our coaching staff put a game plan together and our kids bought into it and they executed it. We came out with a lot of energy and we started the third quarter off with energy as well. I think that’s as complete a game as we’ve played. … I think everybody in Massillon’s proud of their Tigers tonight.”

Fitch, now 6-1, had not allowed any teams to score more than 10 points in its first six games, a total Massillon had exceeded by the end of the first quarter. The Tigers rolled up 533 yards of offense on the Falcons’ highly-touted defense.

“It was a huge statement, because everyone was talking this team up all week,” said Tiger running back Ryne Moore, who finished with 112 rushing yards and a score. “They were beating teams pretty good, so it was a huge statement for us to come out and do what we did.”

Coming into the game, Massillon felt like it may have an edge over Fitch thanks to the throwing arm of Kyle Kempt. Of the Falcons’ first six opponents, none boasted a quarterback with the passing ability of the Tigers’ senior.

And Kempt proved that to be true.

By the end of the first quarter, Kempt had thrown for 209 yards and two touchdowns, completing 12-of-15 passes. By halftime, his numbers were up to 15-of-20 passing for 273 yards with four touchdowns.

“We didn’t see a lot of changes in their looks, and they didn’t change the rest of the night,” said Kempt, who finished the game 18-of-26 passing for 308 yards with four scores. “We had a  good plan heading into the game. We just knew we could exploit them, especially through the air.”

The big performance by Kempt and the offense was equalled by a defensive effort that kept the high-scoring Falcons to a season-low in points, with their second touchdown coming with just more than four minutes remaining. The previous low had been 24 points in their season opening win over Warren Harding.

Through three quarters, Fitch – which lost starting quarterback Matt Futkos in the third quarter – had just 161 yards of offense. The Falcons finished with 259 total yards.

“We came out and we knew we were going to play because we knew they were a good opponent,” said Tiger defensive end J.D. Crabtree, who 6.5 total tackles, two sacks and four tackles for loss in the game. “We saw what they had done to Boardman, and we saw that Boardman had beaten GlenOak. … We came out fired up and we did our jobs.”

Massillon came out of the gate looking to show just what kind of night it was going to be for it offensively. The Tigers took the opening kickoff and marched from their own 15 to the Fitch 18 in 10 plays.

But the Falcons arched their backs on third and fourth down, including a sack on the latter to turn away the Tiger threat.

Undaunted, Massillon made sure its next possession ended in points. The Tigers took eight plays to go 93 yards — the last 32 on a touchdown pass from Kempt to Beau Huffman — to take a 7-0 lead with 3:30 left in the first quarter.

Fitch had its one and only answer on the night, taking the subsequent drive 76 yards in seven plays. The last 10 came courtesy of a quarterback keeper by Futkos to tie the game at 7-7 with 47 seconds left in the quarter.

That 47 seconds was more than enough for Massillon to take the lead for good. Kempt hit Marcus Whitfield for a 58-yard touchdown strike on the final play of the quarter to make it 14-7 Tigers.

Kempt hooked up twice with his favorite target this season – Gareon Conley – on touchdown strikes in the second quarter to help Massillon take a 28-7 halftime lead. The first was an 18-yard scoring pass with 5:03 left in the half to make it 21-7.

Mike Smith set up Conley’s second touchdown by recovering a Fitch fumble at the Falcon 37.

On the next play, Conley caught a 37-yard touchdown pass to make it 28-7 with still 4:10 remaining until the band show.

Moore made it 34-7 with just over three minutes left in the third quarter with a 27-yard scoring run, juking out Fitch’s Ohio State-bound Billy Price in the process.

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2012: Massillon 62, Akron Firestone 27

Massillon offense shines in 62-27 rout of Firestone

Chris Easterling
The Independent

MASSILLON – It was a memorable defensive effort that helped carry Massillon to a big win over Steubenville last week. On Friday night, it was the Tigers’ offense that carried the day as they cruised to their fourth win in a row.

The Tigers scored on nine of their first 10 possessions – all touchdowns – as they rolled up a 62-27 win over visiting Firestone at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

Massillon improves to 5-1, but the task figures to get much, much tougher next Friday night, when state-ranked and undefeated Austintown Fitch comes to town.

“I thought offensively, we played well,” Massillon coach Jason Hall said. “It seems like we either play really good offensively, or really good defensively. Next week’s game, if we don’t come out and play a complete game, we’re not going to put ourselves in a position to be successful.”

No doubt the Tigers would love to bottle up a little bit of the offensive fireworks they put on display against the Falcons of Firestone when they go up against the Falcons of Fitch.

By halftime, Massillon had rolled up 281 yards of offense and had turned a close game into a rout. What was a 15-13 Tiger lead with just less than 10 minutes remaining in the first half after turned into a 36-13 advantage by the time the bands hit the field for intermission.

Massillon finished the game with a season-best 585 yards of offense.

The catalyst for Massillon was a familiar face. Senior quarterback Kyle Kempt completed 15-of-17 passes in the first half alone – with four of those going for touchdowns – and had 194 yards through the air.

Kempt finished the night 20-of-25 for 313 yards with five touchdowns. Two of those went to Gareon Conley, while Zach Volzer, Ryne Moore and Marcus Whitfield each caught one.

“Kyle has been a consistent football player for us all year,” Hall said. “That’s what we expect out of him. He’s a captain; he’s a leader. He’s a Division I football player. Kyle Kempt managed the offense, like he always does. I thought we did a great job of spreading the ball around. You couldn’t ask for much more offensively.”

Conley finished the game with eight catches for 176 yards and two touchdowns – six for 120 and both scores came the first half. The 176 receiving yards were second-most in a single game in school history.

But Kempt also showed off a little bit of his scrambling ability. The 6-foot-5, 200-pounder helped to open up the lead with a 16-yard run that put Massillon in front 22-13 with 8:27 left in the first half.

That score broke the dam wide open for the Tigers, who outscored Firestone 28-7 in the second quarter. They added a 20-7 third-quarter explosion.

Firestone may have come into Friday night’s game with only a 2-3 record and an offense that had scored more than 13 points just once in its first five games, but the Falcons also boasted some big-play ability behind a Division I college running back in Jerome Lane Jr. and a Nebraska recruit in wide receiver Kevin Gladney.

And thanks to two big plays, Firestone found itself within two points with just under 10 minutes left in the first half.

The first was a 58-yard touchdown pass to Gladney that pulled the Falcons within 8-6 with 4:12 left in the first quarter. Gladney simply beat the Tiger defender on a post pattern, caught the ball in stride and ran untouched into the end zone for the score.

The second was a 40-yard scoring strike to Reggie Rogers that once again cut it to a 15-13 Tiger lead. That Firestone score was set up by an interception on a screen pass by Falcon defensive linemen Brennan Williams, the only time in the first half Massillon did not score when it had the football.

“We had a good game in the first half,” Firestone coach Tim Flossie said. “The second half, we just fell apart. (Massillon) did a nice job. They found a way and just kept going to it.”

Despite the lopsided result on the scoreboard, the Falcons still rolled up 474 yards, 227 of those in the first half. They added a 26-yard scoring pass to Lane with less than 90 seconds left in the game to provide the final margin.

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2012: Massillon 24, Steubenville 7

Massillon strikes quick in defeating Steubenville

Chris Easterling
The Independent

MASSILLON Jason Hall wanted to see his Massillon Tigers do something Friday night they really hadn’t done since the season opener – come flying out of the gates to start a game.

Hall got his wish, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

The Tigers scored three first-quarter touchdowns to establish the momentum early in a 24-7 win over previously-undefeated Steubenville at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

“Our kids came out ready to go,” Hall said after his team improved to 4-1. “We sputtered a little bit in that game. Our defense played really well in that game. My hat’s off to them; I’m proud of them. We just kept coming.”

Three weeks earlier, in the Tigers’ first “really big game” of the season against GlenOak, they came out flat. The result was a 20-3 deficit in the fourth quarter that ultimately resulted in a 26-24 loss to the Golden Eagles.

There was no such flat start on this night. In fact, Massillon could not have scripted a better start in its second “really big game” of the season.

“GlenOak, we came in and everybody was pumping us up and we just got big-headed,” Tiger running back/linebacker Kentrell Taylor said. “Ever since that loss, it hit us hard. We told ourselves we haven’t done anything yet; we have to prove ourselves. Anybody can beat us when we don’t play our game.”

The Tigers scored on the game’s first possession, with Kyle Kempt hitting Gareon Conley for a 21-yard touchdown pass just 1:36 into the contest. Kempt was 4-for-4 on the drive for 71 yards, with two passes going to Conley for 51 yards.

Massillon’s defense made its first stop of the night on Big Red’s first possession. Marcus Whitfield initially bobbled the ensuing punt around the Massillon 19, but recovered, made a pair of initial defenders miss and then raced 81 yards for the touchdown as the Tigers went up 14-0 with 7:08 remaining in the first quarter.

“I was looking at the ball, and I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, it’s my first punt return,’ ” said Whitfield, who scored his first varsity touchdown on the play. “I dropped the ball, then picked it up and just started running and was trying to figure out what I was going to do. I just saw a hole and I started running and my teammates all just started blocking for me. The next thing you know, I was in the end zone.”

Kempt hit Tonn for a 24-yard touchdown pass with 3:52 left in the first quarter to make it 21-0.

A play earlier, Tonn kept the drive alive when he hit Ryan Rambo for a 31-yard completion on a fake punt, setting Massillon up with a first down at the Big Red 24.

Asked how long he had been waiting to run the fake, Hall said, “I don’t know; a couple of weeks.”

Massillon’s final points came with 10:42 remaining when Anthony McCarthy – handling all the kicking chores due to an injury to Andrew David – booted a career-long 42-yard field goal to make it 24-7.

“At first I thought I missed it; I thought it was short,” McCarthy said. “Next thing I know, Brody’s jumping on me. … I couldn’t believe that ever happened to me.”

The lone Steubenville score came on a one-play, 9-yard scoring drive – a touchdown run by Dashon Redman. A bad snap on a Massillon punt, and the subsequent shanked kick and return set up Big Red with the short field.

A recovered pooch kick by Steubenville after the score gave Big Red the ball at Massillon’s 37.

But that drive ended with no points, as Steubenville finished with just 143 total yards of offense.

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2012: Massillon 41, Massillon Perry 21

Behind Conley, Massillon pulls away from Perry in second half

Chris Easterling

PERRY TWP. It was a backyard brawl on Friday night at Perry Stadium. And neither Massillon nor
Perry was about to give an inch to the other.
But it was the Tigers who delivered the knock-out blow, blowing open a close game in the fourth quarter
in a 41-21 win against the Panthers in front of a standing-room-only crowd.
“I know that (Perry coach Keith) Boedicker and his kids are going to play tough football,” said
Massillon coach Jason Hall, whose team is 3-1 entering next week’s home game with Steubenville. “I
didn’t think we tackled well, but that contributed by them and their kids. They played tough. This
game’s important to both schools. We’re three-and-a-half miles apart; everybody knows each other. It
means something. I’m proud of our kids.”
Gareon Conley removed all doubt with three fourth-quarter touchdowns – two offensive and one
defensively – to turn a seven-point Tiger lead into a 27-point advantage.
Conley finished with 103 yards on four catches with three receiving touchdowns to go with the pick-six.
“There’s a reason why he’s a big-time player,” Hall said of Conley. “Any time’s he’s around the ball,
he’s electric. I think he proved tonight why he’s one of the best, if not the best, player in Stark County, if
not Ohio.”
The Tiger fourth-quarter explosion belied a game that was a battle for three quarters. Perry, in fact,
outgained Massillon 398-362 in total offense, and out-rushed the Tigers 242-119.
Perry’s Braxton Berry gained 103 yards on 24 carries.
“It was a (heck) of a football game,” said Boedicker, whose 2-2 team will host Hoover next week. “We
did what we wanted to do. We made some critical errors late third, early fourth quarter. … There’s no
coach in America that’s more proud of his kids tonight than I am. We fought our guts out for 48
minutes.”
Perry came out of the gates and established itself as a team not about to be pushed around by the Tigers.
The Panthers took the opening kickoff and marched 47 yards to the Massillon 22, but was stopped a
yard shy of converting a fourth-and-9 situation on the drive’s 12th play.

But after Massillon was forced to punt on its first possession, the Panthers went to work on the game’s
first scoring drive. Keyed by a 28-yard pass from Adron Bealer to Brandon Neira that took the ball to
the Tiger 1, Perry took a 7-0 lead with 27 seconds left in the first quarter on a 1-yard Bealer plunge.

The Tigers tried to make their second drive count, but after losing four yards on third-and-goal from the
Perry 5, they were forced to try a 26-yard field goal. The kick sailed right, leaving Perry in front.

Massillon finally squared things up after forcing a Panther three-and-out. Kyle Kempt tossed a 31-yard
scoring pass to Conley — who wrestled it away from the Perry defender in the end zone — to tie things
at 7-7 with 5:27 remaining in the half.

Kempt was 13-of-21 for 243 yards passing Ernie Baez then helped the Tigers get the lead, returning an interception to the Perry 8. Two plays later, Kentrell Taylor ran through a wide-open hole off the right side of the line for a 5-yard touchdown and a 14-7 Massillon lead with 2:50 left in the half.

Perry, though, was undaunted. The Panthers moved right back down the field and tied the game, with
Bealer rolling to his left and finding Dillon McGraw in the end zone for a 16-yard score, as McGraw came back for the diving catch with 48 seconds left to tie the game at 14-14.

But, once again, Baez helped the Tigers gain the lead back. This time, it was a swing pass that Baez caught, broke a couple of tackles and raced 58 yards down to the Perry 6.

Two plays later, Kempt rushed in from two yards out, giving Massillon a 21-14 lead with eight seconds left in the half.

Perry had a chance in third quarter, thanks to a roughing the punter penalty on the Tigers that gave the
Panthers a first down at the Tiger 20. Perry reached the Tiger 2, but a holding call on fourth down pushed the ball back to the Massillon 14.

The Panthers missed a field goal on the subsequent play with just a little more than three minutes left in the third.

“That was huge,” Boedicker said. “That’s a 21-21 game down there.”

It proved costly, because the Tigers made it a 28-14 game on the next possession. The capper was a 20-yard catch-and-run by Conley, who slipped out of a tackle at about the Perry 10 and ran into the end zone on the first play of the fourth quarter.

Conley made it 35-14 when he returned an interception 78 yards for a touchdown with 9:31 remaining.

The pick squelched a Panther drive that had reached the Massillon 26.

The Tiger senior added a 46-yard touchdown reception with 7:12 remaining. The kick failed, leaving it
at 41-14.

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2012: Massillon 34, Maumee 12

Massillon pours it on Maumee in weather-shortened game

Chris Easterling
The Independent

MAUMEE A 20-minute trip across Stark County proved to be too much for the Massillon Tigers to handle a week ago in a loss at GlenOak. On Friday night, they tried their hand at dealing with a two-and-a-half-hour trek to the northwest corner of Ohio as they paid undefeated Maumee a visit.

The long journey seemed to revitalize the Tigers, who caught fire midway through the first quarter and never looked back in rolling to a 34-12 win over the Panthers at Richard Kazmaier Stadium.

The game was called after one half of play as a storm moved into the area. The officials pulled the plug at 10:30 p.m.

“You travel three hours for a rain delay, but I thought, by the second quarter, our kids were playing well,” Massillon coach Jason Hall said after his team improved to 2-1 entering next week’s game at Perry. “We settled in defensively. We were pleased with the way we played.”

The secret to the Massillon rout was an offense that was the exact opposite of the previous week. Against GlenOak, the Tigers were held to minus-4 net yards rushing on 21 carries, albeit 32 of those yards lost came on six sacks by the Golden Eagles.

However, on this night, Massillon decided the way to go was to ground and pound the ball down the field. The Tigers powered their way to 225 rushing yards on 20 carries, including big games by both Ryne Moore and Kentrell Taylor.

Moore took an 11-carry, 157-yard, two-touchdown performance into the locker room. Taylor had 78 yards and two scores on just five carries.

“We were real happy with our running backs,” Hall said. “They didn’t get a chance to really see Ernie Baez either. … We really have three guys we’re real confident when they carry the ball. I thought Trelly really showed some of his speed in the open field on that one (50-yard touchdown) run. We were able to rotate some guys in there and let them play. I thought they really ran well in the first half.”

The huge way the half – and ultimately, the game – ended, with Massillon scoring on five straight possessions before finally being forced to punt on its final first-half possessions. That was belied by a slow start caused by many of the same issues that troubled the Tigers last week.

Their first drive reached the Maumee 20, only to get short-circuited by a 13-yard loss on a bad snap followed three plays later by a missed 44-yard field goal.

The Tigers had a pair bad snap. They also were plagued by eight penalties for 65 yards.

“I thought our kids just needed to settle in,” Hall said. “We shot ourselves in the foot on that first drive with a bad snap.”

And, for a stretch, it was Maumee – not Massillon – that was controlling the pace of the game.

The Panthers moved into Tiger territory on each of its first three drives. The first, though, resulted in a Massillon score when Brody Tonn stepped in front of a Maumee screen pass and raced 52 yards for a touchdown and a 7-0 Tiger lead with 8:32 left in the first quarter.

But Maumee scored on its next two possessions to take a 12-7 lead. Andrew Schultz capped a seven-play, 80-yard drive with a 1-yard run with 5:11 remaining in the first to cut to 7-6.

Dominique King then hauled in a 57-yard touchdown pass from Steve Duby on the first play of the next Maumee possession for a five-point lead with 3:28 left in the first quarter.

But the Tigers came back with a three-play, 64-yard drive, capped by a 1-yard Moore run, to take the lead for good at 14-12 just 24 seconds later. And from there, they started to roll.

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2012: Massillon 24, Canton Glenoak 26

Massillon turnovers halt rally against GlenOak

Chris Easterling
Updated: Friday, August 31, 2012

PLAIN TWP. The scoreboard said the Massillon Tigers lost to the GlenOak Golden Eagles 26-24 on Thursday night at a soldout Bob Commings Field. And they did.

But what ultimately cost them the game wasn’t just the points on the scoreboard. It was also the five turnovers the Tigers had that ultimately prevented them from emerging with the win.

“You can’t have that many turnovers; you can’t play that sloppy and expect to win big football games,” Massillon coach Jason Hall said after his team fell to 1-1. “We did not play good enough to win that football game. It might have been (26-24), but the game wasn’t that. We just played so sloppy.”

All five of the Tigers’ turnovers came inside Golden Eagle territory. Twice, they came within two plays after GlenOak – which had four turnovers itself – had turned the ball over itself.

Those turnovers often negated any momentum Massillon was building as it spent all night playing from behind. The Tigers fell behind 7-0 after GlenOak turned the first of their five turnovers – a fumble five plays into the game – into a 13-play, 63-yard scoring drive capped by Justin Smith’s 2-yard plunge.

Massillon, which trailed 7-3 at halftime thanks to an Andrew David 45-yard field goal, quickly fell behind 20-3 after GlenOak scored on its first two possessions of the second half. Tyler Lancaster’s 80-yard run on the half’s first play, and Reid Worstell’s 1-yard plunge to cap a 12-play, 66-yard scoring drive put the Tigers in a 17-point hole with 4:36 left in the third.

The key to GlenOak opening up the lead – outside of the Tigers’ turnovers – was its ability to control the line of scrimmage. The Golden Eagles had 227 rushing yards on 48 carries.

“Both teams have great athletes, but we told our kids that up front’s where it’s going to be won,” GlenOak coach Scott Garcia said after his team improved to 2-0.

The Tigers, meanwhile, found their offense – when it wasn’t turning the ball over – struggling to keep quarterback Kyle Kempt clean. GlenOak brought constant pressure during the game, especially in the first three quarters.

The result was five sacks by the Golden Eagles and several other hurried throws by Kempt, who still completed 29 of 41 passes for 327 yards.

“They blitzed their inside linebackers all night,” said Hall, whose team netted minus-4 yards rushing thanks to those sacks and a 20-yard loss on a bad snap. “They were able to push that line of scrimmage back into Kyle, and at times, he just couldn’t make good plays.”

That passing helped Massillon climb back into the game. But it started with a 4-yard rushing touchdown by Ernie Baez with 7:29 left in the game, a score that cut it to 20-10.

After a GlenOak fumble, the Tigers made it 20-17 when Baez capped a quick three play drive with a 2-yard run with 6:11 remaining. The big play, however, was a 40-yard Kempt-to-Gareon Conley pass to the GlenOak 2.

GlenOak appeared to regain control, methodically marching 80 yards in eight plays – with Worstell rushing three times for 44 yards – to take a 26-17 lead with 3:00 left.

Fullback Vince Cuenot gashed the Tigers for an 18-yard run on a trap play for the score.

Massillon’s final answer came courtesy of a 30-yard Kempt-to-Conley touchdown pass with 2:11 remaining to make it 26-24. However, the Golden Eagles secured the win when Worstell hit Cuenot on a play-action pass into the flat for 15 yards.

“They did well on third down, even on the last drive,” Hall said. “They did well on third down. You have to tip your cap to them.”

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2012: Massillon 52, Akron Buchtel 21

Massillon cruises past Buchtel 52-21 in opener

Chris Easterling
Updated: Thursday, August 23, 2012

MASSILLON – It was expected the Massillon Tigers would be able to score some points this season. And they didn’t waste any time in showing just how easy they could change the scoreboard.

The Tigers turned an early Buchtel turnover into a touchdown, then rolled from there in routing the Griffins 52-21 in Thursday night’s season opener at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

“I thought we moved the ball real well at times,” Tiger coach Jason Hall said after his team opened 1-0. “We got sloppy a little bit at times. We put some of our young guys in and they played like young guys. … We’ll get back to work and keep coaching them up.”

The tone was set in the first half, as Massillon scored on four of its first five possessions to take a 28-6 halftime lead. The only one of the five drives that didn’t result in points still crossed the Griffin 25, but ended with a missed field goal.

Massillon came into the season boasting of a new spread offensive scheme that spread the ball around to a variety of different weapons. But the key to that offense was to be senior quarterback Kyle Kempt’s ability to get the ball to those weapons.

Kempt showed why many expect him to thrive in the offense. He connected on eight of his first nine passes – with the only incompletion caused by a devastating hit by a Buchtel defender – and went into halftime already sitting with a stat line of 12-of-16 for 243 yards and a touchdown.

Those 243 yards were just four yards shy of his best passing game of the 2011 season, set in Week Seven against Delaware’s Red Lion Christian. Kempt would finish with a career-high 316 yards while completing 17-of-23 passes with two touchdowns and no interceptions.

“Kyle showed why he’s a Division I quarterback,” Hall said. “He threw it as well as you could ask him to. He was under pressure at times … he threw a couple of deep balls under pressure that a lot of kids can’t make. Kyle Kempt showed why he’s Kyle Kempt.”

Not only was he efficient, he was also willing to spread the wealth. Out his first eight completions, seven different receivers caught passes, and by halftime, eight receivers had catches.

Kempt found the holes in the Buchtel defense often, hitting Marcus Whitfield on a 32- yard post pattern, Gareon Conley on a 46-yard go route or Zach Volzer on a nifty 20-yard slant pattern. But maybe the best throw came on his lone first-half touchdown, when — on fourth down — he rolled right, found a wide-open Brody Tonn for a 37-yard score to give the Tigers a 21-0 lead with 9:34 remaining in the half.

While the arm of Kempt and the deadly Tiger passing game would draw many of the oohs and ahhs, the Massillon running game would do the dirty work of picking up many of those tough final yards. The Tigers would have just 14 run plays in the first half — four by Kempt — but three would result in touchdowns.

Kentrell Taylor would score twice on the ground before halftime — on runs of 3 and 7 yards. Ernie Baez would add a 1-yard plunge in the first quarter, while Ryne Moore scored on a 1-yard run in the fourth quarter to make it 52-21.

Taylor would finish with three touchdowns while rushing for 52 yards on eight carries. Moore would add 47 on 13 totes, while Baez gained 45 on six carries.

“I think one of our strengths is we can get multiple people to touch the ball,” Hall said. “We make the people defend the field. We have multiple running backs we can put in and carry it around.”

Taylor would help to set up the first Tiger score as well, when he recovered a Griffin fumble at the Buchtel 21 on the third play of the game. Three plays later, he ran it in for a 7-0 lead less than two minutes into the game.

“Anytime you can get a turnover early in the game and get the momentum, it’s going to help the first half go your way,” Hall said.

The senior linebacker would also keep Buchtel scoreless after its second drive reached the Massillon 5. It was his tackle on fourth-and-goal that stopped a potential touchdown, when he stuffed the Griffin ball carrier at the 1 to give the ball back to the Tigers.

Massillon wouldn’t be intimidated by the 99 yards between them and the goal line. The Tigers took eight plays and less than a minute to make it 14-0.

It would be 21-0 Tigers before Buchtel finally figured out the Tiger defense. The Griffins would go 80 yards in eight plays, scoring on Eean Jones’ 2-yard run with 3:04 left in the half to make it 21-6.

Buchtel’s second touchdown would come courtesy of its defense, which returned an interception against Massillon’s second-string offense for a score to make it 42-14 after the two-point conversion with 5:30 left in the third. Elijah Bell scored on a 68-yard pass with 3:20 left in the third to cut it to 42-21, necessitating the offensive starters — who had gone to the bench up 42-6 with around six minutes left in the third — to return to the game.

GAME STATS

Massillon vs. McK - Throwback (Large) History

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

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2011: Massillon 7, Steubenville 24

Red-Rocked
Tigers’ six-game win streak snapped

Chris Easterling
Chris.Easterling@IndeOnline.com

STEUBENVILLE The last time the Massillon Tigers ventured into Steubenville’s infamous Death Valley, they struggled to match Big Red’s physicalness in a 10-point loss. Friday night, they traveled back down to the Ohio River looking to show things were going to be much different on this trip.

Instead, it was Steubenville that once again proved to be the aggressor for much of the game, sending the Tigers home with a 24-7 defeat in front of a sellout crowd in Death Valley.

“They outplayed us on the offensive and defensive line,” said Tiger coach Jason Hall after his team saw its six-game win streak snapped as they fell to 7-2.

“They hit some big plays, which affected us. It seemed like every time we did something, we would do something to shoot ourselves in the foot. We didn’t play a consistent football game. Offensively, we didn’t do anything tonight.”

The Tigers held to just 106 total yards on 39 plays, and just five first downs for the night. Where it was even more pronounced was in the running game, where Massillon was held to just eight yards on 18 carries.

“To beat somebody who’s as tough as you, you have to come out and fight them,” said Steubenville coach Reno Saccoccia, whose team improved to 9-0 as he picked up his 300th career win. “That’s what I tell our kids. You have to be able to go toe-to-toe, nose-to-nose with them. We couldn’t out-athlete them tonight. We couldn’t do that. … Our game plan against a team better than us is we have to be tough.”

BIG RED PULLS AWAY
That showed itself most dramatically in the fourth quarter, when Steubenville turned a 10-7 lead into a 24-7 advantage with a pair of long scoring drives. The first drive, a 14-play, 78-yard drive, was capped with JoJo Pierro’s 2-yard plunge at the 5:50 mark of the fourth quarter.

On the subsequent kickoff, Big Red recovered the kickoff at the Tiger 47. This time, it took seven plays to grind out the score, with Pierro’s 3-yard scoring burst making it a 17-point Steubenville edge with 2:27 remaining.

Massillon would run just five plays in the fourth quarter, and none until the 2:26 mark of the quarter.

A year ago, Steubenville’s six turnovers helped give Massillon a big 21-point win. In Friday’s rematch, an early Tiger turnover helped put Massillon in an early hole.

On the third play of the game, Big Red’s William Houst bull-rushed his way in to wrap up the quarterback. As he was making the tackle, he managed to strip the ball away as well to give Steubenville the ball at the Massillon 31.

“He didn’t have a lot of big plays, but he had a lot of pressure plays,” Saccoccia said of Houst.

Six plays later, Big Red had the lead as Marcus Prather hit Najee Murray perfectly in stride on a slant pattern for a 15-yard scoring strike. The point-after try gave Steubenville a 7-0 lead about four minutes into the game.

BIG REDS PRESSURE
The ability to keep the Big Red defenders out of the backfield played a huge role in why the Tigers were unable to get a consistent offense going, especially in the first half. Massillon’s first two possessions were derailed by sacks, while even when it was able to get a pass play off, its quarterbacks endured a pounding.

“They got consistent pressure on us, and we didn’t capitalize on any of it,” Hall said. “They had a gameplan to put pressure on us. They were successful.”

On the Tigers’ lone scoring play, Kyle Kempt was hit as he delivered a 13-yard touchdown pass with 1:32 left in the half. Harrison had to make a slight adjustment against the defender in the end zone in order to come back for the football and the catch.

Harrison’s scoring catch, though, only put Massillon in a 10-7 deficit. Big Red had taken a 10-0 lead just about two minutes into the second quarter on a 28-yard Luke Smith field goal.

Massillon’s ability to force turnovers in the first half helped it to keep the Big Red offense from adding to its lead. The Tigers managed to record a pair of fumble recoveries prior to the half, once at the Massillon 11 and another at the Tiger 43 after a reception.

For the game, Steubenville would finish with 367 total yards. Of that, 176 would come on the ground.

Now, Massillon must turn its attention right away to another team clad in red and black, archrival McKinley. And all that game may hold is the Tigers’ playoff chances.

“We’ve got to refocus and get ready for a big game next week,” Hall said.

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2011: Massillon 24, Warren Harding 7

TIGERS ROMP
Massillon Waits on Weather Then Starts Quickly During Win

Chris Easterling
The Independent

MASSILLON The Massillon Tigers waited through a nearly hour-long delay before they could get started with Thursday night’s game against Warren Harding. Once they were able to get under way, they didn’t wait around to jump on the Raiders.

The Tigers scored on their first two possessions in rolling to their sixth straight win, a 24-7 victory over Warren in front of 5,997 rain-soaked fans at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

“Delays are hard,” Tiger head coach Jason Hall said. “We were getting ready to come out and they come in with a delay. At the end of the day, you have to respond and you have to handle that.”

Massillon will take a 7-1 record into next Friday’s showdown at undefeated Steubenville, the No. 1-ranked team in Division III. The game against Big Red is the first of two consecutive road games to wrap up the regular season for the Tigers, the other being McKinley the following Saturday.

Those two games ultimately will decide Massillon’s playoff hopes. The Tigers were ranked No. 7 in Division I, Region 2 in this week’s computer rankings.

“They’ll respond; they respond to big games,” Hall said. “Steubenville and McKinley are two of the biggest games on our schedule for the tradition and history of these programs playing each other. Our kids will be ready to play next week.”

Before Massillon could think about the critical final two games, it had to tend to business against a Warren team that had just one win coming into the game – and left with the same number of wins as it fell to 1-7. But before the Tigers could take care of the Raiders, they had to wait out a weather delay.

Thursday night’s game was scheduled to kick off at 7:10 p.m. However, lightning delayed the start of the game until almost 8.

Massillon wasted no time in grabbing the momentum once play commenced, as it recovered an onside kick on the opening kickoff. It also forced a turnover on the first play of the initial Raider possession.

Both of those were converted into touchdowns for the Tigers on Kyle Kempt-to-Ernie Baez scoring passes. However, Massillon needed third-and-long conversions in order to get those scores.

On the first Massillon drive, it faced a third-and-13 from the Raider 23. Kempt found Baez on a screen, and Baez raced untouched into the end zone for the score at the 9:51 mark of the first quarter.

After recovering a Raider fumble at the Warren 20, the Tigers found themselves in a third-and 15 situation at the Raider 25. This time, Kempt hit Baez in the right flat, and he once again ran into the end zone for a 14-0 lead at the 8:46 mark of the first quarter.

“They were manning us and playing some cover-4 and really playing off Ernie Baez,” Hall said. “That allowed Ernie to cross the field. We hit him on a middle screen and then a drag route. We were able to convert on those.”

Kempt would finish the game with three touchdown passes, as he added a 30-yard scoring strike to Chris Calhoun on the first drive of the third quarter that made it 24-0 Tigers. Kempt was 14-of-26 for 176 yards on the night.

“The crossing patterns seemed to work,” Hall said. “We hit Chris Calhoun with a deeper crossing pattern later in the game.”

Massillon added a 26-yard field goal by Andrew David in the first half. That came on a drive set up by a partially blocked Warren punt that Ryan Rambo returned 27 yards to the Raider 26.

The Tigers’ 17-0 halftime lead was more than enough against a Raider offense that struggled to get any consistent drives going. At the break, Warren had just 66 total yards – 20 of those coming on its second possession which reached the Tiger 25 – and four first downs.

For the game, the Raiders mustered 214 offensive yards. Warren broke up the shutout bid with
27 seconds left when Jalyn Powell scored on a 10-yard run against Massillon’s reserves.

GAME STATS