Tag: <span>Brody Tonn</span>

Massillon vs. McK - Throwback (Large) History

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

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 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 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 Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2011: Massillon 21, Canton Glenoak 22

Inadvertent whistle costs Massillon chance at late, go-ahead score

Chris Easterling
The Independent

For the better part of three quarters Thursday night, it was the opposite story from a year ago for the Massillon Tigers with regard to handling GlenOak star tailback Bri’onte Dunn. Instead of letting the Golden Eagle back run wild, the Tiger defense was able to keep Dunn relatively in check.

However, when the fourth quarter came around, Dunn began to run wild, scoring two touchdowns in the final 7:10 of the game to lift the Golden Eagles to a 22-21 win over Massillon inside Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

While Dunn’s fourth-quarter outburst may have ultimately cost Massillon, many may look at an apparent fumble by the Golden Eagles at midfield that was nullified by an inadvertent whistle with 1:33 remaining. The ball was given back to GlenOak, which ran out the rest of the clock.

“Ultimately, what they did was take the game out of letting the kids decide,” said Tiger coach Jason Hall after his team fell to 1-1 on the season, “whether we win or GlenOak wins.”

Dunn, who had 297 yards in three quarters a year ago on his way to 320 yards in a 28-27 Tiger win, had 115 rushing yards on 23 carries through three quarters. In the fourth quarter, he exploded for 134 yards on 16 carries with a pair of scores to help GlenOak erase a 21-10 Tiger lead.

“Coach (Scott Garcia) said we had to work hard,” Dunn said. “We were down two touchdowns. We worked hard and we weren’t quitting for this one.”

The GlenOak senior finished with 249 yards on 39 carries. He also threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Lunden Butler on a halfback pass to give the Golden Eagles a 7-0 lead with 49 seconds left in the first quarter.

For Massillon, though, Thursday night was as much about missed opportunities as it was about Dunn’s fourth-quarter heroics. Massillon basically spent the entire first half in GlenOak territory. In fact, the only play out of their five first-half drives that was snapped on the Tiger side of the 50 was the first play of the game — a 48-yard strike from Kyle Kempt to Justin Blake to the GlenOak 27.

However, for all of that great field position, the Tigers only mustered one score on a 28-yard game-tying touchdown from Kempt to Montel Harrison with 11:15 left until halftime.

Two sacks and a penalty self-destructed the first drive at the GlenOak 15-yard line. Another drive, which started after Massillon recovered an onside kick, ended when it was stopped on downs at the GlenOak 4.

Still another, which reached the GlenOak 6, was thwarted when a pass off a field-goal try was picked off in the end zone.

“We missed opportunities,” Hall said. “We missed a field goal. We bobbled the snap; it happens. We got stopped on fourth down. … As hard knocks as we thought the end of the game was, we missed on opportunities where that situation could’ve been avoided.”

That missed chance cost the Tigers a chance for the halftime lead. GlenOak, given the opening, didn’t miss on its chance to take the edge into the intermission.

The Golden Eagles drained the final 4:15 off the first-half clock and took a 10-7 when Stephen Semple wrapped up the half with a 23-yard field goal.

GlenOak’s final first-half drive featured the two longest runs of the first half for Dunn, who was bottled up for much of the half to the tune of 75 yards on 16 carries. Thirty-one of those yards came on consecutive runs of 13 and 18 runs to take the ball down to the Tiger 7.

The Tigers’ fortune with regards to field position didn’t change with the change in halves. However, they found their luck in finishing drives did, as they took their first third-quarter possession from the GlenOak 43 into the end zone on Ryne Moore’s 17-yard scoring run for a 14-10 lead with 7:20 left in the third quarter.

They recovered a GlenOak fumble on the Eagles 47. Three plays later, Kempt hit Tre Hendricks for a 46-yard scoring pass to take a 21-10 lead with 5:24 left in the third.

A second GlenOak turnover — this one an interception by Brody Tonn — forced the Tigers to take just their second snap of the game in their own territory, this time at their own 27.

Massillon would not run another play in GlenOak territory the rest of the game.

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2010: Massillon 56, Brantford, Ont. Canada 7

Tigers tune up for Big Red, belt Brantford

By CHRIS EASTERLING
The Independent

MASSILLON, OH — Jason Hall never denied that a portion of this past week was spent as much on preparing for next Friday’s showdown with undefeated Steubenville as it was on Friday’s actual opponent from Ontario, Brantford Collegiate.

About 10 seconds into the game was all it took for the Tigers to officially be able to turn their eyes to Big Red. That’s the amount of time it took Devin Smith to take the opening kickoff back 79 yards for a touchdown giving Massillon the lead for good.

From there, it was a question not of if the Tigers would add to their lead, but how much, as they rolled up a 56-7 win over the overmatched Canadian guests at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

“It’s really kind of hard to judge, but we played a lot of kids,” Hall said after his team won its fifth straight to improve to 5-1 on the season. “I thought we executed for the most part, even with our young guys. We stayed healthy. It’s fun to see some of those guys play who don’t always play on Friday night. All in all, it was a pretty successful night.”

The Tigers led 28-0 after one quarter and made it 35-0 less than two minutes into the second quarter. It was at that point that Hall began to pull his regulars from the game and the real focus turned to Steubenville.

“I thought at the time that we put our kids in, I knew they would be successful,” Hall said of making the move to the reserves. “They practice hard. I thought we, obviously, had an handle on the game.”

That didn’t prevent Massillon from continuing to bulk up its lead even with the reserves in. By the time the two teams headed to the locker room at halftime the Tigers were up 49-0, and most of what was left of the 6,224 in attention were focused more to the halftime kicking competition where Whitney Robinson had a chance to win $500,000 by making a 35-yard field goal.

Robinson, for the record, ended up walking away with $500 by kicking the ball out of the end zone.

The second half was played with a running clock. By that time, the Tigers were already counting down the minutes and seconds until Steubenville’s first visit to Massillon – to face the Tigers – since 1978.

About the only “blemish,” if you will, came on the game’s last play when Brantford’s Colin Wilcock caught a 27-yard pass from Brodie Parker and fell into the end zone for the shutout-breaking score. The scoring drive was 76 yards and left the Mustangs with 69 total yards for the game, compared to 381 yards for the Tigers.

Even with the Tigers appeared to be on the wrong end of things, it wound up working out for the best. Their second touchdown came on a fourth-and-seven play when Kyle Kempt hit Justin Olack for a 26-yard touchdown pass.

The only time Massillon actually started a first-quarter drive on its own side of the 50, it took it just one play – a 66-yard Kempt-to-Olack touchdown pass – to score.

The sophomore Kempt made the most of his five possessions under center completing 4-of-7 passes for 106 yards. He gave way to fellow sophomore Brody Tonn, who Kempt replaced as the starter two weeks ago, on the second possession of the second quarter.

Another sophomore, Kentrell Taylor, also made the most of his chances to carry the ball in the first half. The bruising 6-foot, 240-pound back punished the Brantford defense for 65 yards and a pair of touchdowns on seven carries.

“Kentrell, the last two or three weeks has really practiced well,” Hall said. “The biggest thing everybody sees is that he’s progressing. He understands the offense and he runs hard.”

Damion Smith also got into the first-half scoring act by ripping off a 43-yard touchdown run. Aaron Medrano added a touchdown catch in the second half.

GAME STATS

Massillon 56,

Brantford (Ont.) Collegiate 7

at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium

Brantford 0 0 0 7 7

Massillon 28 21 7 0 56

SCORING SUMMARY

M – De. Smith 79 kickoff return (McCarthy kick)

M – Olack 26 pass from Kempt (McCarthy kick)

M – Taylor 1 run (McCarthy kick)

M – Olack 66 pass from Kempt (McCarthy kick)

M – Smith 7 pass from Kempt (McCarthy kick)

M – Taylor 14 run (McCarthy kick)

M – Da. Smith 43 run (McCarthy kick)

M– Medrano 28 pass from Tonn (McCarthy kick)

B – Wilcock 27 pass from Parker (Mann kick)

BC M

First downs 4 15

Rushes-yards 22-16 24-188

Comp-Att-Int 7-19-1 10-13-0

Passing yards 53 193

Fumbles-lost 2-1 2-1

Penalties-yards 2-10 5-45

Records 1-2 5-1

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

Rushing:

Massillon – Taylor 7-65 2 TDs; Da. Smith 1-43 TD; Reiman 5-33; Tonn 2-27; Cowan 2-12; Copeland 2-11.

Brantford Collegiate – Winch 9-22.

Passing:

Massillon – Kempt 4-7-106 3 TDs; Tonn 6-6-87 87 TD.

Brantford Collegiate – Parker 6-13-54 TD; Kelly 1-6-(minus-1) INT.

Receiving:

Massillon – Olack 2-92 2 TDs; McCormick 2-23; Cowan 2-22; Medrano 1-28 TD.

Brantford Collegiate – Packer 2-25; Dennis 2-2; Archibald 2-(minus-1); Wilcock 1-27 TD.

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2010: Massillon 27, Stow 10

Massillon not smooth, but stops Stow

By CHRIS EASTERLING
The Independent

MASSILLON, OH – It had been a while since the Massillon Tigers could look up and see themselves sitting with a double-digit lead as the scoreboard clock hit triple zeroes. That’s exactly what the Tigers were able to do on Friday night, as they handed Stow a 27-10 loss at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

But for the last three quarters, that double-figure lead felt like anything but one for the Tigers. After jumping out to a 21-0 second-quarter lead, Massillon was beset by choppy play, turnovers and penalties for the remainder of the game – things which were front-and-center on head coach Jason Hall’s mind immediately afterward.

“I told our guys, if we play this way in what we call our big games,” Hall said after his team improved to 2-1 with a big road test at Mentor next Friday, “not putting anything down on Stow, but if you go on the road to Mentor and play like this, we’ve got no shot. We have to execute. We can’t have turnovers, we can’t have sloppy play. We can’t have cheap penalties, and we’ll address that. … We have to play the way we’re capable of playing.”

In winning, the Tigers may have opened the door to a bit of controversy at the quarterback position. Brody Tonn started for the third straight game, and led the Tigers on scoring drives on each of their first two possessions, including a 59-yard touchdown strike to Jacar Roberson.

But on the third Tiger possession, a combination of four bad or mishandled snaps spoiled any chance Massillon may have had to add to what was a 14-0 lead at the time. And on the next possession, highly-touted sophomore Kyle Kempt made his Tiger debut, coming on to throw a 29-yard touchdown pass to Roberson to give Massillon a 21-0 lead with 9:07 remaining in the half.

“We just weren’t able to really get into a good rhythm at the end of the first quarter,” Hall said. “We came out pretty hot. … Missing snaps and we weren’t getting into a rhythm, so I thought it was time to calm Brody down. Kyle’s been practicing well, so it was time to see what he could do.”

Kempt played the remainder of the game, finishing 6-of-11 for 74 yards. Prior to being removed, Tonn was 4-of-5 for 92 yards with the touchdown.

Hall would not commit to a direction with the quarterback position after the game.

Stow, which could get nothing going in the first quarter, managed to cut it to 21-10 at halftime thanks to a pair of scoring possessions. The Bulldogs broke through on the scoreboard when quarterback Mike Greenwell adeptly kept the ball on an option play for a 49-yard scoring run just 17 seconds after the Tigers had built up their three-touchdown lead.

Aaron Quinn’s 30-yard field goal with 14 seconds left in the half cut it to an 11-point margin. Stow had a touchdown pass called back due to a holding penalty – one of four on the drive against the Bulldogs.

In fact, the yellow flags had quite a prominent presence in the second quarter. Stow was flagged for 10 penalties in the quarter for 80 yards, including three straight procedure flags for kicking the ball out of bounds on the subsequent kickoff after the field goal.

Massillon didn’t fare much better in the penalty department, getting hit for seven second-quarter flags for 60 yards. For the game, the Tigers were flagged 13 times for 120 yards, while Stow had 14 penalties for 102 yards.

“It’s embarrassing, that’s the only word I’ve got for those penalties,” Hall said of the penalties. “It’s embarrassing. I’ve never been in a game where we had that many penalties. We played last week and we had seven penalties.”

Lost in all the choppiness of the game was a slow emergence of the Tiger running game, which was held to just an average of 2.2 yards per carry in the first two games. But against Stow, Massillon finished with 168 yards, averaging 4.7 yards a rush.

Jake Reiman was the primary benefactor of that success. Reiman, who came into the game with 74 rushing yards on the season, finished with 141 yards on 19 carries.

Reiman’s 8-yard run in the first quarter gave the Tigers a 14-0 lead. He added a 5-yard run in the third quarter to close out the scoring.

But, much like the game, Hall had a caveat to the rushing night for his team.

“I thought we ran hard and the kids played hard, but at the same time, we weren’t consistent,” Hall said.

GAME STATS

Massillon 27
Stow 10

at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium

Stow 0 10 0 0 10
Massillon 14 7 6 0 27

SCORING SUMMARY

M – Roberson 59 pass from Tonn (McCarthy kick)
M – Reiman 8 run (McCarthy kick)
M – Roberson 29 pass from Kempt (McCarthy kick)
S – Greenwell 49 run (Quinn kick)
S – FG 30 Quinn
M – Reiman 8 run (Kick blocked)

Mas Stow
First downs 14 10
Rushes-yards 36-168 32-99
Comp-Att-Int 10-16-0 12-24-3
Passing yards 166 118
Fumbles-lost 4-2 0-0
Penalties-yards 13-120 14-102
Records 2-1 1-2

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

Rushing:
Massillon – Reiman 19-141 2 TDs; Roberson 2-22.
Stow – Greenwell 14-75 TD; Mitchell 14-40.

Passing:
Massillon – Tonn 4-5-92 TD; Kempt 6-11-74 TD.
Stow – Greenwell 12-24-118 3 INTs.

Receiving:
Massillon – Roberson 4-124 2 TDs; Smith 4-36; Olack 1-5; Winters 1-1.
Stow – Herman 5-46; Waggoner 4-34; Garrison 2-35; Gobble 1-3.

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2010: Massillon 28, Canton Glenoak 27

Tigers withstand GlenOak’s Dunn, rally for key win

By CHRIS EASTERLING
The Independent

CANTON, OH On a night when GlenOak’s Bri’onte Dunn appeared to be on his way to a magical kind of night, the Massillon Tigers stole the show and put together the kind of win that can jump-start a season.

Despite giving up 320 yards rushing to the Golden Eagles’ talented running back, Massillon rallied in the second half to pull out a 28-27 win at sold-out Bob Commings Field on Thursday night.

We handled adversity, Tiger coach Jason Hall said after his team pulled to 1-1 on the season. They fought and they fought. GlenOak came out of the gates and just smacked us and made some big plays early. … We just kept hanging in there.

Nobody may have better epitomized that hang-in-there attitude than Brody Tonn, the Tigers sophomore quarterback.

After a miserable night in his first varsity start last week against Buchtel, Tonn came back to put up the kind of game that Hall expected from his young quarterback when he gave him the reins of the offense in two-a-days. The sophomore completed 17-of-30 passes for 330 yards and four touchdowns and two interceptions.

I had so much support after that game, Tonn said. Everybody calling me and telling me to keep my head high. It was my first game and I got it under my belt. I just took that all in mind.

Two of his biggest supporters during the week were his two biggest targets Devin Smith and Justin Olack. And those two were there again on Thursday night to give him a lift on the field as well.

It was Smith’s 45-yard touchdown catch on a ball he had to come back to get that gave Massillon its first lead of the night – at 28-27 after Anthony McCarthy’s critical point-after kick – with 11:50 remaining. Smith finished with five catches for 116 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

“All week we’ve been working with him,” Smith said. “We’ve been talking to him and keeping his head up. … The most important thing for him being so young, us seniors have to step up and make sure his head is in the game.”

Olack added 150 yards receiving on eight catches, with six of those grabs and 122 of those yards in the first half. His 81-yard touchdown catch late in the first half cut GlenOak’s lead to 21-14 at halftime.

Tyler Allman also caught a 31-yard touchdown pass from Tonn that made it 27-21 GlenOak in the third quarter.

The problem for much of the night for Massillon wasn’t its offense. It was GlenOak’s offense – or, more specifically, Dunn.

The Golden Eagle junior showcased his immense talents for the better part of the night. He had 119 yards on eight carries in the first quarter, including a 78-yard run that gave GlenOak a 14-0 lead.

He put GlenOak up 21-7 early in the second quarter with a 57-yard burst to the end zone. At the half, he had already reached 234 yards on 22 carries.

Dunn’s final scoring run was a 31-yard effort in which he bounced off at least three Tiger defenders to give GlenOak a 27-14 edge with 9:39 remaining in the third quarter. The PAT bounced off the upright to keep the lead at 13.

Through three quarters, Dunn had 295 yards rushing on 31 carries. But the Tigers were able to hold him to just 25 yards on eight fourth-quarter carries, although he did have a big 20-yard reception to convert a third down late.

“We stopped wrong-arming,” Hall said. “The concern was he was bouncing in space and we weren’t tackling. We were trying to keep him inside, and our secondary had to come up and start tackling.”

GlenOak would threaten seriously once in the fourth quarter, getting down to the Tiger 3 after Massillon had pulled in front. But a fumble by the Golden Eagles was recovered by Massillon’s Seth Nalbach, snuffing out the potential threat.

After stopping the Golden Eagles on downs at the Tiger 43 with 2:21 left, Massillon would run out the clock – thanks to a GlenOak offsides penalty with 10 seconds left on a fourth-and-2 situation.

“This brought us together,” Olack said. “Our confidence is up now. We just have to play good every week now. We gained our respect back, too, from the fans.”

GAME STATS

Massillon 28
GlenOak 27

at Bob Commings Field

Massillon 7 7 7 7 28
GlenOak 14 7 6 0 27

SCORING SUMMARY

GO – Butler 45 pass from Meredith (Hayes kick)
GO – Dunn 78 run (Hayes kick)
M – Smith 43 pass from Tonn (McCarthy kick)
GO- Dunn 57 run (Hayes kick)
M – Olack 81 pass from Tonn (McCarthy kick)
GO – Dunn 32 run (Kick failed)
M – Allman 31 pass from Tonn (McCarthy kick)
M – Smith 45 pass from Tonn (McCarthy kick)

Mas GO
First downs 13 15
Rushes-yards 23-46 41-318
Comp-Att-Int 17-30-2 4-15-1
Passing yards 330 103
Fumbles-lost 1-0 1-1
Penalties-yards 4-30 4-20
Records 1-1 1-1

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

Rushing: Massillon – Reiman 7-23.
GlenOak – Dunn 39-320 3 TDs.

Passing: Massillon – Tonn 17-30-330 4 TDs, 2 INTs.
GlenOak – Meredith 4-15-103 TD, INT.

Receiving: Massillon – Olack 8-150 TD, Smith 5-116 2 TDs; Roberson 2-29; Allman
1-31 TD; Winters 1-4.
GlenOak – Butler 1-45 TD, Merrell 1-27, Dunn 1-20, Hall 1-11.