Tag: <span>Findlay</span>

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2005: Massillon 27, Findlay 20

Massillon secures date with rival

By JOE SHAHEEN

As Lanale Robinson led the Tiger Swing Band in the alma mater, Massillon head coach Tom Stacy had his head down. He was deep in thought, no doubt pondering the Tigers upcoming regional championship game on Saturday against unbeaten Canton McKinley.

Clearly Stacy wasn’t happy with what he had just witnessed as the Tigers knocked off a game and feisty Findlay team 27-20 at Arlin Field in Mansfield last Saturday night in front of 12,264 paying customers.

“We have to play much better to even have a chance next week,” Stacy said. “There’s no question about that.

“We came back tonight but we didn’t play very well. We made a lot of mistakes, a lot of goofy penalties. We did some stuff tonight that we hadn’t done all year. That was kind of disappointing. But it’s a win. That’s all you can say.”

It was a heart-stopping win, one marred by penalties and mental mistakes uncharacteristic of two teams playing in the 12th week of the season.

Findlay looked to be beaten when it got the ball back on its own 22 with 1:22 to play. But the Trojans pulled the old hook and ladder play out of mothballs and if not for a heroic effort by Brian Gamble to run down Findlay’s Caleb Enright at the 3-yard line, the game would have gone into overtime.

“(Gamble) has made big plays for us all year and that was big,” Stacy said.

Findlay still had time to get it in the end zone. A short completion to Enright in the left flat came up a yard short and with the final seconds ticking off the clock, Trojan quarterback Chris Schneider tried to sneak it in instead of spiking the ball to stop the clock.

The middle of the Tiger defensive line did not yield and Massillon had survived to play another week.

“There’ll be so many ‘what ifs?’, I don’t know if I’ll ever watch this film, I swear,” said Findlay head coach Cliff Hite. “We had them. They had us. We had a shot. That’s all you can ask for.

“We wanted to spike the ball but he didn’t get the right signal. It happens. That’s high school football. When you go no huddle with no time outs, that’s what you’ve got to do.”

It should never have come to that but the Tigers were their own worst enemy all night long. They were penalized 10 times for 97 yards, including no fewer than three \”roughing the kicker\” flags and three other personal fouls.

Massillon also lost three fumbles, one at the Findlay 13-yard line.

“We’re down here with a chance to put it away and we fumble the snap,” Stacy said. “We haven’t fumbled a snap all year and we fumbled two tonight. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”

Findlay led 10-7 at halftime, controlling the football for 17 of the first 24 minutes of play.

The Trojans went up 17-7 after a 52-yard punt return by Zack Kraus set up an 8-yard Schneider to Andrew Leddy touchdown pass at 9:38 of the third quarter.

Then Massillon woke up, marching 65 yards in nine plays with Gamble covering the final half yard for the touchdown. Steve Schott tacked on the point after to make it Findlay 17, Massillon 14 at 6:07 of the third quarter.

Tiger junior defensive back Michael Porrini recovered a Findlay fumble on the second play of the Trojans ensuing possession, setting Massillon up at the Findlay 29.

Bobby Huth, who completed 10 of 13 passes for 102 yards on the night, rolled right on first down and connected with Zack Vanryzin at the 8-yard line and the senior wideout did the rest to give the Tigers their first lead of the night at 21-17 with more than five minutes still to play in the third.

Massillon then forced Findlay into a three-and-out series, and the Tigers took over at their own 20 after the Trojan punt.

On first down, Huth took the snap and looked to be optioning right, but instead pitched the ball to Robinson on a reverse. The senior tailback turned the corner and sprinted down the left sideline for an 80-yard touchdown. A failed two-point conversion made it Massillon 27, Findlay 17 at 3:20 of the third.

“I’m upset the way we let the third quarter go,” Hite said. “When we got up 17-7, it was almost like we let up a little bit and Massillon turned it up about 15 notches.”

“We tried to,” Stacy responded. “We needed to. We told the kids at halftime we needed to. It was kind of like we were playing in a fog the first half.”

The lone fourth quarter tally came when Findlay marched from its 10 to the Massillon 7, then settled for Brandon Walker’s 24-yard field goal with just under five minutes to play.

The Tigers tried to run out the clock but the plucky Findlay defense forced a Massillon punt with 1:22 to play.

“We’re 11-1 and we have a chance for a rematch now and we’ll see what happens,” Stacy said. “To play like that and get a win, we were fortunate.

“We got the rematch but we have to do something about it. We have to play better. We have to up our play to have a chance (against McKinley), that’s for sure.”

GAME STATS

Antonio James
Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2004: Massillon 36, Findlay 16

By William R. Sanderson
William.Sanderson@IndeOnline.com

Massillon wanted to establish a ground game at Findlay. It’s safe to say they did just that after Ramon Kelly ran all over the Trojans for a 36-16 Tiger victory at Donnell Stadium on Friday night.Kelly, a 5-foot-8, 175-pound senior, ran for 288 yards and two touchdowns on only 24 carries. Caleb White added 82 yards and two touchdowns on 15 carries to help the Tigers improve to 2-2 on the season. Findlay drops to 0-4.

The success the Tigers had running the ball came in an odd-looking package – a tight, I-formation set. “In this case we were trying to build off the running game we had last week,” Massillon coach Rick Shepas said. “We are a similar offense to Findlay. We both line up in the spread. I know we like playing against other spread teams because we see it so much in practice. So, I wanted to see how the guys would respond when we packed it in.”The Tigers responded pretty well. They established a 9-0 lead in the first
half and then maintained the advantage in the second half.Kelly showcased tremendous speed on several carries. He would appear destined to be stopped behind the line but would simply outrun the defenders to the corner. “There is no question about it,” Shepas said, “Ramon has a great burst.” While he didn’t get the same gaudy numbers as Kelly, Shepas praised his other running back – Caleb White, a 5-11, 178-pound senior. “Both our backs really ran the ball hard,” Shepas said. “Ramon ran the ball hard and Caleb did too. He broke some tackles.”

On the other side of the ball the Tiger defense had Findlay under control for the majority of the contest.Findlay struggled to muster 53 yards in the first half and 120 yards for the game. Wide reciever Zach Kraus started at quarterback for Findlay after one quarterback had been benched and another was injured last week. That forced Findlay into a largely ground-oriented attack.Massillon’s ground game kicked into high gear from the very start of the game, but a couple of mistakes kept the halftime score from being any larger than 9-0 Tigers.On the opening possesion, Kelly and White took turns gouging yards. Massillon got as far as the Findlay 2 before a fumbled snap forced the Tigers to settle for a 24-yard Steve Schott field goal to make it 3-0 with 8:21 on the clock.Schott had another chance in the opening minute of the second quarter, but just missed a 47-yard opportunity wide right. The defense would share credit for Massillon’s next score when Alex Dahlquist intercepted a Findlay pass and gave the Tigers the ball on the Findlay 22. A few plays later White ran in for a two-yard touchdown. A bad snap cost Massillon the extra point and the score was 9-0 with 7:08 to go in the second quarter.Massillon came five yards away from adding to its lead at the end of the first half. With under a minute to go, Massillon advanced to the Findlay 5 when Findlay’s Andrew Leddy and Jason Inbody brought down Tiger quarterback Quentin Paulik for a big loss. A screen pass from Paulick to Kelly brought the ball back to the five and the Tigers spiked to ball to stop the clock with :14 left. On
fourth-and-four, the Trojan defenders held fast.

“We had some opportunities we didn’t take advantage of,” Shepas said of the first half. “Still our defense played fantastic and we had the advantage going in the second half.” That Massillon defense came up big again in the third quarter when Lorenzo Grizzard jumped on a fumbled pitch. A little while later Paulik threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to a wide-open Brett Huffman. The extra point was blocked to make the score 15-0 at the 7:57 mark of the third quarter.For a brief moment, Findlay looked like it might make the finish an exciting one when Greg Mills broke a return 95 yards for a score on the ensuing kickoff, but Massillon answered promptly with touchdown runs by White and Kelly to make the score 29-10 before the end of the third quarter.The Findlay offense finally had some measure of success in the fourth quarter with the matter essentially decided. Mills and Kraus both ran the ball to set up a 10-yard Andre Strzempka touchdown catch from Jeff Foltz. The kick made it 29-16 with 4:53 remaining.Kelly had one final score for good measure when he broke a 38-yard jaunt for a touchdown at the 2:38 mark. Schott’s kick made it 35-16.Massillon will go into next Saturday’s game with Washington D.C. Coolidge with a 2-2 record, not that Shepas places a whole lot of importance on the .500 mark. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We take it one game at a time.”

GAME STATS


Kurt Jarvis

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2003: Massillon 34, Findlay 17

Sacked
Second half again belongs to Tigers

By JOE SHAHEEN
Joe.Shaheen @ IndeOnline.com

For the second week in a row, the Massillon Tigers turned it up a notch in the second half, enabling them to roll past the Findlay Trojans 34‑17 in a match‑up of 2002 Division I state semifinalists witnessed by 8,644 fans at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium on Friday.

Program Cover

Massillon, now 3‑1, was clinging to a tenuous three‑point halftime lead despite being on the short end of every first‑half statistic, including a time of possession disparity of 18:16‑5:44.

The Tigers were a different team after the band show, marching 64 yards in 11 plays on their first possession to take a 10‑point lead, then going 81 yards in 13 plays to jump out by 17 points.

Findlay, which falls to 2‑2, rallied with an 80‑yard touchdown drive of its own but Massillon took advantage of some favorable field position thanks in part to a 43‑yard Max Shafer punt than pinned the Trojans deep in their end ‑ to put the game away with a 29‑yard scoring possession midway through the fourth quarter.

“They waxed us in the third quarter and we couldn’t stop them,” said Findlay head coach Cliff Hite. “That was the whole thing right there. We couldn’t stop their offense. They were quicker than we were. We didn’t tackle well. They executed brilliantly.

“They are the best team we’ve played by far. By far. They were bending but they didn’t break. They kept us out of the end zone better than anybody in a long time.”

“We didn’t start off as good as we can but we had a lot of leadership in the locker room at halftime and we took it out on the field in the second half,” said Tiger co‑captain Billy Relford. “We had a lot of guys step up. Steve (Hymes) stepped up at quarterback in the second half and drove the team down the field. Max (Shafer) stepped up in the kicking game. Brock (Hymes) stepped up at linebacker.

“When Steve stepped up at quarterback, it rubbed off on other people. It was like ‘I’m going to step up. I’m going to step up.’ We just started playing well as a team.”

Hymes hit on two long passes in the opening drive of the second half, connecting with Ryan Schindler for 30 yards on a third‑and‑eight play, then finding Brad Hauser for 22 yards on a third‑and‑14 situation. Five plays later, Tuffy Woods dove into the end zone behind left guard Tim Dewald and left tackle Vince Volpe to put the Tigers up 20‑10.

Findlay responded, moving from its 20 to the Massillon 11 in eight plays. But on the ninth play of the drive, Tiger sophomore lineman Dirk Dickerhoof made a diving interception of a pass in the right flat to repel the Trojan incursion.

“I just saw the quarterback fake, the running back come out and I just dove and got it,” Dickerhoof explained. “It swung the momentum.”

“That was the play of the game,” said Tiger coach Rick Shepas. “They were on a good drive and then Dirk intercepts that pass and that really took a lot of air out of their sails at that point.

“When you watch Dirk play basketball, he’s kind of a garbage man. He’s rebound after rebound. He’s junk point after junk point, and that’s kind of the way he plays for us on defense. He’s always where he’s supposed to be and he keeps playing hard. When you’re consistent like that and play like that, good things happen to YOU.”

After the turnover, the Tigers went to their ground game, as Woods and Ramon Kelly took turns gouging out real estate against the tiring Findlay defense. Hymes sustained the drive when he hit Eric Copeland for 16 yards on a third‑and‑seven play. Another pass to Wayne Gates got the ball inside the Trojan 10, and Hymes then went back to Copeland for an 8‑yard touchdown with :12 remaining in the third quarter.

Shafer’s kick put the Tigers up 27‑10 and although both teams would find the end zone once more, that tally all but sealed the deal for Massillon.

Hymes finished with 58 yards rushing to go with 191 yards passing, 106 of which came in the second half.

“Steve was sick all week,” noted Shepas. “He got bit by the flu bug.

“We woke him up a little bit at halftime. It was just a little extra. A little extra. That’s him getting better and coming into his own. We just had to rattle him up and little bit and get his attention and then he focuses a little better.”

“We just kept pushing it and pushing it,” Hymes said. “We wouldn’t let up on them. I made sure I told the guys ‘Don’t let up. Don’t let up. We’re not finished yet.’

“We were just too powerful. Too powerful.”

Massillon scored the first time it touched the football after forcing Findlay into a three‑and‑out off the opening kickoff.

Taking over at the Findlay 43, Steve Hymes kept the ball on an option play, galloped through a gaping hole over his left guard and into the Trojan secondary. The elusive senior then cut toward the right sideline and went untouched for a 43‑yard touchdown run.

The point‑after was no good but Massillon was up 6‑0 at 10:11 of the first quarter.

Findlay took the lead on its third possession of the game after Massillon failed to convert a fourth‑and‑four at the Trojan 35. It appeared the Massillon defense had forced its second three‑and‑out but Findlay faked the punt on fourth down, and instead completed a 15‑yard pass that produced a first down at the Tiger 43.

One play later, Baker hit Brady Schneider on a post pattern at the 10‑yard line and the Trojan bounced off two shoulder tackles and into the end zone for a 43‑yard touchdown. Mark Snodgrass converted the point‑after kick and Findlay was up 7‑6 at 2:45 of the first quarter.

Snodgrass then capped a 16‑play drive for Findlay with a 24‑yard field goal with 5:45 left in the first half to put the Trojans up 10‑6.

The Tigers hit the Findlay defense with a lightning bolt on their ensuing possession.

On third‑and‑12 from the Massillon 38, Hymes took the shotgun snap and threaded the needle to Relford at he Findlay 40. Relford ran through one tackle as he sprinted left to right across the field, then simply ran away from the Trojan pursuit for a 62‑yard scoring play with 4:51 remaining until half.

Shafer was true with the point‑after kick and Massillon carried a 13‑10 edge into the locker room. It was a lead they would build on to ensure their third victory in four starts.

Massillon 34
Findlay 17

GAME STATS

Findlay 7 3 0 7 17
Massillon 6 7 14 7 34

SCORING
M ‑ Steve Hymes 43 run (Max Shafer kick failed)
F ‑ Schneider 43 pass from Baker (Snodgrass kick)
F ‑ Snodgrass 23 FG
M ‑ Billy Relford 62 pass from Hymes (Shafer kick)
M ‑ Woods 2 run (Shafer kick)
M ‑ Copeland 7 pass from Hymes (Shafer kick)
F ‑ Almond 31 pass from Baker (Snodgrass kick)
M ‑Ramon Kelly 1 run (Shafer kick)

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Massillon rushing: Hymes 10‑58, 1 TD, Kelly 7‑35, 1 TD, Woods 13‑24, 1 TD
Findlay rushing: Almond 9‑39

Massillon passing: Hymes 11‑23‑191, 2 TDs, 1 INT
Findlay passing: Baker 25‑45‑311, 2 TDs, 1 INT

Massillon receiving: Copeland 3‑29, 1 TD, Relford 2‑78, 1 TD
Findlay receiving: Curtis 18‑144, Almond 4‑64, 1 TD

Brock Hymes