Massillon Will Remain in the Columbus Region for the…

The Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) has released its preliminary regional post-season playoff assignments for the 2021 season.  Massillon will remain in Region 7, which is the region associated primarily with teams from the Columbus area.  Also, all teams across the state will stay in their respective divisions as assigned in 2020, which for Massillon is Division 2.  In 2022 the divisions will be reassessed.

Last season the Tigers captured their 14th regional crown, then defeated Cincinnati LaSalle in the state semifinals, while losing the Akron Hoban in the finals.  It was Massillon’s third consecutive trip the Division 2 state finals and 6th state finals historically.

There are 25 teams in Region 7, with 16 qualifying for post-season play.  The teams include the following:

From the Massillon area:

• Massillon Washington
• Massillon Perry
• North Canton Hoover
• Uniontown Lake
• Green

From the Columbus area:

• Westerville South
• Worthington Kilbourne
• Olentangy
• Olentangy Berlin
• Dublin Scioto
• Big Walnut
• Mount Vernon
• Canal Winchester
• Watkins Memorial
• Columbus St. Charles
• Columbus Independence
• Columbus Mifflin
• Columbus Northland
• Columbus Walnut Ridge
• Columbus Whetstone
• Columbus Whitehall – Yearling

From other areas:

• Wooster
• Licking Heights
• Marion Harding
• Logan

Region 5 includes Akron Hoban, Cleveland Benedictine, Hudson, Mayfield, Austintown Fitch, Walsh Jesuit and Warren Harding.  Region 6 includes Avon, Avon Lake, Barberton, Wadsworth, Toledo Central Catholic, Toledo St. Francis and Toledo St. John’s.  Region 8 includes Cincinnati LaSalle, Cincinnati Winton Woods and Kings.

Massillon will once again feature a very competitive schedule, opening on Friday August 20 at home against Pickerington Central, the 2019 Division 1 state champs and 2020 Division 1 state finalist.  Other major opponents include 2018 Division 1 state champion Lakewood St. Edward, Austintown Fitch, Canisius from New York and Canton McKinley.

Linemen Have Their Way in Pittsburgh

It may still be several weeks until the official start of the practice for the 2021 football season, but the Massillon Tigers are not taking the summer off.  They are working hard in the weight room and improving their speed with a regimented training program.  Last Sunday (June 28) they had a chance to showcase their talent at the U. Pittsburgh Camp by participating in the 7-on-7 tournament for skill players and going head-to-head with other high schools in the Big Man contest.

“Big” is an understatement for these future offensive and defensive linemen, as the photo below can attest to.  And they literally walked away with first place, earning a sledge hammer with “Pitt” written on the head.  After showing their wares in the weight lifting and tractor tire events, Massillon won the final activity of the day by graciously dragging their opponent over the line in a tug of war that lasted all of five seconds.

Incidentally, Massillon had previously taken first at the camp in 2018 and second in 2019.  The camp was not held in 2020.

Although the skill players didn’t win their event, they did well enough in early competition to be recognized as the top seed going into the tournament portion.

Playing host was 2020 Tiger Terrence Rankl, who is a freshmen for the Panthers.

Front Row (L-R): Toddrick Lee, Te’Jamere Nash and Reece Turpin.  Standing (L-R): Donte Holloway, Michael Mercurio, Jaiden Woods, Marcus Moore, Coach J.P. Simon, Terrence Rankl, Dom Salvino and Landon Peteros.

Tiger Relay Team Places 3rd at State Meet

The Massillon 4 x 200 meter relay team didn’t disappoint at the state level, placing 3rd in Division 1 in the final 8-team group and setting a new Massillon High School record in the process.  It was a blistering pace throughout the race and the Tigers had the lead with but a 100 yards left.  But they were overtaken in the final few yards by the 1st and 2nd place teams.  They ended up finishing a mere half second from first.

In the Friday preliminaries, Massillon turned in the second fastest time with a mark of 1:27:65, which they bettered in the Saturday finals by more than a second.  Incidentally, the state record for this event is 1:24:42, set by Pickerington Central last year.

Here are the final results:

• 1st – Pickerington North – 1:25.96
• 2nd – Gahanna Lincoln – 1:26:38
• 3rd – Massillon – 1:26:43
• 4th – Canal Winchester – 1:27:03
• 5th – Granville – 1:27:63
• 6th – Centerville – 1:28:63
• 7th – Thomas Worthington – 1:29:23
• 8th – Solon – 1:29:24

Freddie Lenix competed in both the 100 and 200 meter dashes, but didn’t qualify for the finals in either event.  His time in the 100 was a very respectable 10.93 seconds (the leader posted 10.46).  Just a sophomore, his day will come.

But hard work certainly paid off for these fine athletes.  All underclassmen, the team includes freshman Ta’Shaun Smith, sophomores Ardell Banks and Lenix, and junior Austin Brawley.  We’ll see all of you on the football field come August.

Four Tiger Speedsters Advance to State Track Meet

Massillon will participate in three events at next week’s state track meet following continued success at the Austintown Regionals.  The events include the 100 meter dash, 200 meter dash and 4 x 200 meter relay.  The 4 x 100 meter relay was disqualified in the finals due to a lane violation, in spite of turning in the field’s fastest time during the preliminaries.

• 100 meter dash – Freddie Lenix placed first with a time of 11.22 seconds, edging out runners from Stow and Boardman.  During the preliminaries he posted a time of 10.98.
• 200 meter dash – Lenix took third in the event with a time of 22.76.  The winning time was 22.62.  He also took third in the prelims.
• 4 x 200 meter relay – Massillon took first with a time of 1:30.05.  The next two spots were captured by Nordonia and Stow.  The Tiger runners included freshman Ta’Shaun Smith, sophomores Ardell Banks and Lenix, and junior Austin Brawley.
• 4 x 100 meter relay –  Massillon had the fastest time in the preliminaries, 42.89, a quarter of a second ahead of second place University School.

Overall, Massillon placed 7th as a team among a field of 44 schools that recorded points.

The state meet will be held on June 4-5 at Hilliard Darby High School.  In addition to the four players mentioned above, Angelo Salvino and Javontez Bradford will be available as alternates.

Tiger Moms Hold Fundraisers

Monte Carlo Night Slated for May 7

OHSAA Doubles the Number of Playoff Qualifiers

What was once 12 quickly became 16 when the Ohio High School Athletic Association recently announced an expansion of the high school football playoffs.  From 1999 through 2019, eight teams in each region qualified for the playoffs.  Then it became 12.  Now it is 16.

The OHSAA initially rolled out a scenario for the 2021 season whereby 12 teams would qualify, with the top four receiving byes in the first round.  But there were also rumors at the time that it could move to 16 within the next few years.  It turns out that the OHSAA, which was starved of funds last year during the pandemic, must have seen an opportunity to recoup some of those lost funds and elected to go all the way this year.

In the past, each school was allotted a percentage of the proceeds from ticket sales.  But last year the OHSAA controlled all of the sales through an Internet portal and retained all the funds.  The same sales method will probably be in place again this year.

“Last fall we received overwhelmingly positive feedback when we allowed every team to enter the football playoffs due to the shortened season because of COVID-19,” said Doug Ute, OHSAA Executive Director. “We know there are some who want to keep the football postseason to a smaller number of schools, but the postseason tournament gives such a positive experience for our student-athletes, the schools and their communities that we felt strongly about giving that opportunity to more schools to make the playoffs. And football remains the OHSAA sport in which not every team automatically qualifies for the postseason.” – OHSAA website

According to the new format, in the first round the No. 1 seed will play the No. 16 seed, the No. 2 seed will play the No. 15 seed, etc., with the higher seeds hosting the games.  The higher seeds of those winners will then host the second round games.  Starting in the third round, all games will be played at neutral sites.  The playoffs will begin on October 9 and finish on Sunday, December 5, encompassing six weeks of additional play.

For Division 1 schools, which have 18 teams in each region, only two teams per region will fail to qualify.  So from that standpoint, it serves well to be a Division 1 school.  Had the new format been in place following the 2019 season, the eight non-qualifiers from Division 1 would have been Newark (1-9), Canton GlenOak  (1-9), Beavercreek (2-8), Toledo Bowsher (3-7), Columbus Mifflin (1-9), Sylvania Southview (1-9), Cincinnati Moeller (2-8) and Cincinnati Oak Hills (0-10).

The remaining divisions have approximately 25 teams in each region, which means that around 60% of those will qualify, still a sizeable percentage.  For Division 2, 14 of the 17 teams that finished 5-5 would have qualified.  Also, the worst record of the qualifiers would have been 3-7, which includes Boardman with wins over Poland Seminary (8-2), Garfield Heights (6-4) and Youngstown Ursuline (2-8), and Lima Senior with wins over Lima Central Catholic (9-1), Piqua (5-5) and Fremont Ross (1-9).

Massillon has been a high placer in recent years and as a result, if trends continue, those first round games may be extremely one-sided affairs.  If the situation would have been in place during the past five years, the opponents would have been:

• 2016 – Columbus Walnut Ridge (6-4)
• 2017 – Columbus Franklin Heights (5-5)
• 2018 – Licking Heights (6-4)
• 2019 – Akron Ellet (5-5)
• 2020 – Licking Heights (2-3)

Not exactly a stellar group.  But at least gives the Tigers an opportunity to regroup following the emotional game with Canton McKinley.

but another advantage of the new format, at least for independent schools like Massillon and some of the parochial schools, is that highly competitive schedules will probably not hurt their chances to qualify for the playoffs.  So look for more of the St. Ignatius’s and St. Ed’s on the Tigers’ slate in the future.  It beats playing Akron Firestone.

With 16 teams now qualifying and the first two game potentially at home, the ultimate goal of this new format then is to finish in the region’s Top 4.  That would provide the best opportunity to play those first two games in the friendly confines of Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

Mike Miller Picks Hocking College

Yet another graduating senior has used his outstanding experience and performance as a Massillon Tiger to springboard his career to the next level.  Defensive end Mike Miller will join at Hocking College, which is located in New Lexington, Ohio, just southeast of Columbus.

Hocking College is registered with the National Junior College Athletic Association as an independent team.  According to their website, “In the first five years of the program’s existence, approximately 50 Hocking College football student-athletes have moved on to four-year colleges to continue their academic and football careers.”

Miller played just one year for the Massillon, but he had a major impact in helping his team to a 10-2 record and a runner-up finish in the Division 2 state playoffs.  He finished with 26 solo tackles and 35 assists, including 6.0 quarterback sacks (3rd all-time), 3 pass breakups and a team-leading 12.5 tackles-for-loss (6th all-time).

He was a one-man wrecking crew against Warren Harding when he led the team with five solo tackles and six assists, including four tackles-for loss.  Mike also had a big sack in the game against Canton McKinley when he chased quarterback Elijah Wesley back toward the end zone for a 17-yard loss, eventually dropping him at the 3 yard line.  As it was 3rd and long at the time, the Bulldogs were then forced to punt.

Congratulations to Mike Miller.