Tag: <span>Seth Blankenship</span>

History

2016: Massillon 21, Dublin Scioto 31

OUT OF REACH
Tigers’ mistakes, lack of consistency spell early exit from playoffs vs. Scioto

By Chris Easterling
Independent sports editor

MASSILLON One step forward, two steps back. Where that left Massillon by the end of Friday night was on the wrong end of the scoreboard and looking at an early playoff exit. The Tigers couldn’t maintain a consistent offense, and couldn’t consistently slow down Dublin Scioto in a season-ending 31-21 loss in a Division II Region 7 quarterfinal at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

“We would something good and make a good play – and this was both sides of the ball – and then we would turn the ball over or make an uncharacteristic mistake,” said Jon Mazur, who was serving as Massillon’s acting head coach as Nate Moore served a playoff suspension.

“We’d have a missed block or a missed tackle or a guy jumping offsides. We just did a lot of things, and when you’re playing this level of football in the playoffs, everybody’s good and you can’t beat good teams making those mistakes.”

As Moore watched from the east press box, his team struggled to maintain many of the things which had epitomized its success during a seven-game win streak to end the regular season. Instead of advancing to a regional-semifinal matchup with New Albany, the Tigers bow out at 8-3.

The Massillon run game, which was the bread-and-butter of the offense, had forgettable bookends to the season. The Tigers ran for just 142 yards on 40 total carries, the lowest total since only gaining 90 yards in the season-opening loss to Mentor.

“Our defense, I don’t know what to call it, but it’s been a very strong unit all year,” Scioto coach Karl Johnson said after his team improved to 8-3. “We’ve been very good against the run most of the year. We needed to put the offense with it, and we were able to do that.”

The centerpiece of that offense was a running game that gashed Massillon for big yards when it needed it most. The Irish ran for 253 yards on 39 attempts, the most rushing yards gained against the Tigers since Warren Harding ran for 359 yards in what was their last loss of the season.

Scioto finished with 400 yards of offense, while only turning the ball over once. The Irish, meanwhile, turned three Massillon turnovers into a touchdown and a field goal.

“The game, any game, is going to come down to explosive plays, third-down conversions and turnover margins,” Johnson said. “We probably won all of those tonight”.

That’s why we were able to win this game. Scioto didn’t lead at any point until one of those explosive plays – a 65-yard Jared Nolan run gave it a 21-14 lead 36 seconds into the second quarter. The Irish took the lead for good on a 25-yard Noah Densel pass to Weston Talentino with 11:04 remaining to make it 28-21.
Massillon’s offense came down to the passing game primarily. The Tigers scored on their first play – a school-record 89-yard Austin Jasinski catch-and-run from Seth Blankenship – for a 7-0 lead.

The Tigers also took a 14-7 lead on a Blankenship-to-Austin Kutscher 14-yard pass with 2:43 left in the first quarter. They would tie the game at 21-21 when Jasinski caught his second touchdown of the game, a 55-yarder with 8:58 remaining. Blankenship finished 7-of-15 for 203 yards with the three touchdowns and one interception. Jasinski had four of those catches and 168 of the yards.

Massillon wouldn’t score again. The Tigers had a pair of field goals blocked: a 25-yarder in the third quarter which would have given them the lead, and a 21-yarder in the fourth which would have pulled them within seven with 4:41 left.

“They did a good job of stopping the run or slowing the run down,” said Mazur, who also saw the Tigers flagged a season-high 14 times for 120 yards. “We were able to lean on the pass early and hit some big plays. In the second half, when we moved the ball and moved it down the field, we got stopped. We weren’t able to come up with the big play, whether it was in the pass or the run. We didn’t make the big play when we needed to in the second half.”

GAME STATS

Massillon vs. McK - Throwback (Large) History

2016: Massillon 21, Canton McKinley 19

Tigers battle adversity, bring back victory bell

Chris Easterling
Independent sports editor

MASSILLON Nothing seemed too easy for Massillon on Saturday afternoon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2016: Massillon 21, Akron St. Vincent St. Mary 12

TIGERS GROUND
AND POUND
Tigers overcome weather, first half turnovers to rally past SVSM

Chris Easterling
Independent sports editor

MASSILLON The weather outside was frightful. Almost as frightful as Massillon’s first-half turnovers. It would, however, all turn out delightful for the Tigers.
Shaking off the rain and four first-half turnovers, Massillon would ground and pound its way to a second-half rally to beat St. Vincent-St. Mary 21-12 on Friday night at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

“The weather was definitely a factor,” said Massillon coach Nate Moore after his team won its sixth in a row to improve to 7-2 heading into the regular-season finale against archrival McKinley. “We had some uncharacteristic turnovers. We just fought through it and came together as a team and got it done.”
After running for just 57 yards on 18 first-half carries, Massillon would run the football for 16 consecutive plays – gaining 65 yards in the process – to open the third quarter.

The final three yards came on a Jamir Thomas keeper out of the wildcat formation, giving the Tigers a 7-6 lead with 4:18 left in the third. That would just be the start of it in the second half. Massillon ran for 170 yards on 41 second half carries, with Thomas adding a 2-yard run with 3:28 remaining to add a cushion by making
it 21-12.

“They have a great (offensive) line; we knew that going in,” said Irish coach Marcus Wattley, whose team fell to 5-4 and saw its three-game win streak snapped. “We did a good job using our speed to neutralize that in the first half. The second half, not so much. Once their big boys get on you, they’re hard to get off.”
Jefferson carries the load While Thomas was the one to cash two of the three second-half scoring drives in for Massillon, it was Ethen Jefferson who helped get it down in position to score. After carrying the ball just once for eight yards in the first half, Jefferson ran for 119 yards on 25 second-half carries.

That helped Jefferson finish with 127 yards on 26 carries. Over the last two weeks, the senior has run for 263 yards on 44 carries.

“He was a workhorse for us tonight,” Moore said of Jefferson. “He ran really hard. He got some tough yards. You have to give credit to St. Vincent-St. Mary; really good football team with a great defense. It was some tough sledding in there.”

Massillon would go in front 14-6 on the only real big play it picked up all night. Seth Blankenship shook off a two-interception first half to hit Austin Jasinski for a 58-yard touchdown with 2:05 remaining in the third. Blankenship would finish 2-of-7 for 61 yards on the night. “It was big for our team,” Moore said. “Those guys executed out here in the rain. It was a great throw and a great catch.”

St. Vincent-St. Mary would match that big throw-and-catch with one of their own to make things interesting early in the fourth quarter. Freshman Luke Lindsay hit Malik Wooldridge for a 47-yard touchdown pass with 9:28 remaining. Failed-two-point conversion After Massillon was called for pass interference on the initial two-point conversion try, the Irish were stuffed on a rushing attempt on the subsequent try. That kept the Tigers in front 14-12.

“He’s not your average freshman,” Wattley said of Lindsay, who accounted for 151 of the Irish’s 159 total yards with his arm. “We knew that. That’s why we trusted him in a game like this.”

Halfway through the game, the Tigers seemed to be fighting the same luck they had battled through the last three years against the Irish. They gave the ball up three times on their first four possessions, then fumbled away a lateral attempt after getting an interception on the final play of the first half.

Despite all of that, however, Massillon was still only a play away from getting the lead. All St. Vincent-St. Mary could muster from all of those Tiger turnovers was a pair of Jamie Martucci field goals, which gave the Irish a 6-0 halftime lead. That’s why, despite only 60 total first-half yards and the minus-3 turnover margin, there wasn’t a lot of hand-wringing in the locker room at halftime for Massillon.

“The coaches went in and got to work making adjustments,” Moore said. “We decided what we wanted to go to in the second half. The kids digested the information and applied it on the field.”

Which is why a frightful start ended with a delightful finish for the Tigers.

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2016: Massillon 41, Columbus Beechcroft 19

TIGERS AIR IT OUT
Blankenship throws 5 Tds to beat Beechcroft

By Chris Easterling
Independent sports editor

MASSILLON
Massillon has been a run-first football team this season. That doesn’t mean the Tigers haven’t enjoyed airing it out as well.

On Friday night, Massillon took to the air to take the air out of Beechcroft’s hopes for an undefeated season. The Tigers rode five Seth Blankenship touchdown passes to a 41-19 win over the Cougars at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

Blankenship completed 13-of-17 passes for 258 yards on the night. The five touchdowns represent a career high for the senior quarterback.

“He’s our field general,” Massillon coach Nate Moore said after his team won its fourth in a row to improve to 5-2. “He’s really grown as a quarterback and a leader of our football team over the course of the season. The kids believe in him; our coaching staff believes in him. He led our team to victory tonight.”

Blankenship hit Austin Jasinski for a first-quarter touchdown strike of 68 yards and a second-quarter scoring pass of 47 yards. The latter gave Massillon the lead for good at 14-12 with 7:48 remaining in the half.

Jasinski finished with just the two catches for 115 yards.

With that Austin having made an impact, Blankenship elected to give another Austin – Kutscher – a chance to shine. He would connect with the junior to close out the last two second-quarter possessions on scoring passes of 31 and 45.

The latter provided Massillon with a 28-12 lead with 13 seconds remaining in the first half.

Kutscher finished with a game-high six catches for 107 yards.

“Austin Kutscher took advantage of some man-to-man situations, press situations,” Moore said. “He showed what he could do for us. We were getting nine guys in the box, so that had to happen.”

Kutscher wasn’t the only Tiger to have a big night when maybe it wasn’t expected. Sophomore running back Louis Partridge, getting a bulk of the carries due to Jamir Thomas sitting out the game due to injury, rushed for a career-high 137 yards on 27 carries.

Partridge didn’t find the end zone. But he did continue to show the growth he has undergone over the four-game win streak.

“He’s still got a lot to learn, but he runs hard,” Moore said of Partridge. “He runs hard and he picked up a lot of key yards for us.”

What made those first-half touchdowns even more clutch for the Tigers – and crippling for the Cougars – was the timing. The first three scores all came in third-and-long situations.

The initial scoring pass to Jasinski, which gave Massillon a 7-6 lead, came on third-and-7. The second Jasinski touchdown catch was on third-and-15 play, two snaps after a chop block moved the Tigers out of Beechcroft territory.

The third Tiger touchdown – the 31-yard pass to Kutscher – came on third-and-17. Just the play before, Massillon lost seven yards on a sack.

The Tigers were 6-of-8 on third-down conversions in the first half. They finished the game 8-of-14 on third down.
The final third-down conversion for Massillon was Blankenship’s final touchdown toss, a 2-yarder to Edwin Glick for a 41-19 lead with 5:29 remaining.

“They were putting nine guys in the box and we were still trying to pound the rock up in there,” Moore said. “We were beating our heads against the wall a little bit and we had to make some adjustments, maybe not really adjustments but execution. We had to force the ball down the field to get them out of it.”

Beechcroft, meanwhile, had its own third-down successes early on. The Cougars’ opening-drive score was set up by a 43-yard catch-and-run by Datrey Long to the Tiger 16.

Two plays later, quarterback Kyle Barrett scored on a 1-yard run for a 6-0 Beechcroft lead 3:03 into the game.

Beechcroft took a 12-7 lead with 8:37 remaining in the first half on a third-down touchdown pass from Barrett to Tre Parks of 22 yards. The Cougars missed the two-point try.

Barrett would throw one more touchdown pass, a 53-yarder to Long with 5:13 remaining in the third to make it 31-19 Tigers. Barrett finished 15-of-26 for 263 yards passing, with Long catching six of those for 139 yards.

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2016: Massillon 38, Austintown Fitch 21

Tigers ditches Fitch
Strong second half helps Massillon snap three game skid vs. Falcons

By Chris Easterling
Independent sports editor

MASSILLON The power of three.

Massillon came into Friday night’s home game against Austintown Fitch looking for their first three-game win streak since the first half of the 2014 season. To achieve that feat, however, the Tigers were going to have to take care of another three-game win streak.

The Falcons’ three-game win streak over Massillon.

Nobody said accomplishing that feat would be easy. But the Tigers were able to do it, scoring the game’s final 21 points to rally for a 38-21 win over Fitch.

“We have great kids who play hard,” Massillon coach Nate Moore said. “That’s really the bottom line there. They played hard tonight for 48 minutes and came out with a win against a good team.”

The Tigers are now 4-2 on the season. Massillon will look for its first four-game win streak since starting the 2014 season 5-0 next Friday night when it plays host to undefeated Columbus Beechcroft.

If there was one major concern to emerge from the game, it was the health of two key players: Jamir Thomas and Malcolm Robinson. Thomas suffered a leg injury late in the first quarter and didn’t return, while Robinson appeared to injure his ankle with less than two minutes left.

Moore didn’t know the extent of their injuries beyond Friday night.

In Thomas’ place stepped Kordell Ford and Louis Partridge, both of whom were huge in the second-half rally after Fitch went ahead 21-17 with 8:47 remaining in the third quarter. Partridge’s 2-yard run with :28 left in the third gave Massillon the lead for good at 24-21.

That run was set up when Jesse King recovered a Fitch fumble at the Tiger 32. It was one of two Falcon turnovers.

Ford then scored on fourth-quarter runs of 44 and 5 to help provide a cushion for the Tigers. He would finish with a team-high 88 yards on 14 carries.

Partridge had 77 yards on 18 totes. The Tigers rushed for 285 yards as a team on 51 attempts.

Massillon’s first drive was virtually a thing of perfection, giving it a 7-0 lead. The Tigers used 13 plays to go 68 yards, capping the drive with a 1-yard Thomas touchdown run with 6:54 left in the quarter.

The Tigers had a 77-yard fake-punt touchdown by Austin Jasinski negated by a personal foul flag on their next drive. They would still get to the Fitch 2, but lost a net of 13 yard on the next three plays to settle for a 32-yard Nate Gregg field goal for a 10-0 lead with :32 left in the first quarter.

The change of quarters seemed to change both team’s fortunes. Fitch would get a pair of stops while adding two Randy Smith 2-yard touchdown runs for a 14-10 lead with 3:58 left in the half.

The Falcons, who had minus-3 net offensive yards in the first quarter, had 146 second quarter yards on 15 plays. That includes 6-of-8 passing by Nate Fowler in the quarter for an even 100 yards.

Fitch finished with 284 yards. One thing the Falcons did well for the first three quarters was catch Massillon adjusting defensively by breaking the huddle with less than :15 on the play clock and sprinting to the line and snapping the ball.

Once the Tigers started to neutralize that over the last quarter or so, they were able to slow down the Falcon momentum.

“We just kind of simplified everything,” Moore said. “We were having a little trouble with as fast as they were going from huddle to the line of scrimmage to the snap. We basically just simplified some things.”

It would be a Fitch mistake that would help give the Tigers a 17-14 halftime lead. A roughing the passer flag against the Falcons on a third-and-9 incomplete pass put the Tigers on the Fitch 41.

Five Partridge runs – the last a 5-yarder – would put Massillon into the end zone with :51 left in the half. Partridge, who came on with 7:47 left in the second quarter after Thomas left with the injury, rushed for 64 yards on 10 first-half carries.

Fitch took the lead at 21-17 when it marched 55 yards in eight plays on the first possession of the second half. Smith’s third touchdown run, a 5-yarder, provided the margin.

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2016: Massillon 75, Toledo Bowsher 7

TIGER DEMOLITION

Score 54 in first half en route to rout

Chris Easterling
Independent sports editor

MASSILLON Massillon’s first play Friday night went for a touchdown. By the time the Tigers ran a second play, the rout of visiting Bowsher was well underway.

Offense, defense, special teams, it didn’t matter against the winless and overmatched Rebels.

Massillon scored in all three phases – in the first quarter alone – in rolling to a 75-7 blowout at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

“We came out and did what we’re supposed to do,” said Massillon coach Nate Moore, whose team will take a 3-2 record into next week’s home game against Austintown Fitch. “Proud of our kids for doing that. It’s on to next week and looking at Fitch.”

It was the most points scored in a game by Massillon since a 2014 77-13 win over St. John’s Collegiate out of Canada. It’s the most scored against a team from the United States since a 76-6 win over Fremont Ross in 2002.

After stopping Bowsher on the game’s opening drive, Massillon needed just one play – a 74-yard Seth Blankenship-to-Austin Jasinski pass – to take a 7-0 lead. That score would come with 8:59 left in the first quarter.

Just over four minutes later, the Tigers would run their second offensive play. In between those two plays, Kordell Ford would bring an interception back 75 yards for a score and Jasinski would bring a punt back 80 yards for a touchdown to make it 20-0 Massillon.

Such was the kind of night it was for the Tigers, who rolled up a 54-7 halftime lead. Massillon would score every time it touched the ball in that span, a total of six first-half possessions.

The Tigers had 299 total yards on just 23 first-half plays. They would finish with 424 yards on 45 plays.

The rout was so lopsided by that point that not only was a running clock in effect for the second half, but the quarters were reduced to just 10 minutes each.

By that point, however, the night had been long over for most of Massillon’s starters. But what a night it was, especially in the passing game.

Blankenship threw the ball just four times in just over a quarter of work. All four passes were completed for touchdowns totaling 156 yards.

“He’s doing a nice job,” Moore said of Blankenship, who had thrown for 386 yards and eight touchdowns in the last two weeks combined.

Aidan Longwell, the only other Tiger quarterback to throw the ball, was 2-for-2 for 36 yards.

That included a 5-yard touchdown to Jared Slutz.

Three of those passes went to Jasinski, who accumulated 140 yards on those catches. That gives him nine catches for 286 yards and five scores over the last two weeks.

“He’s really fast and he catches the football,” Moore said of Jasinski. “He’s a good player.”

The other touchdown pass was a 16-yard pass to Ethen Jefferson in the first quarter. That came on Massillon’s third offensive play to make it 27-0 after the point-after kick.

Louis Partridge handled a bulk of the rushing with the Tiger first unit. He carried it 16 times for 92 yards and scored his first two varsity touchdowns.

Defensively, meanwhile, Massillon picked back up where it left off in last week’s shutout of Ursuline. The Tigers limited Bowsher to minus-6 rushing yards on 16 first-half carries while forcing four turnovers, two of which were interceptions by Ford.

Bowsher finished with 109 total yards, 106 of those coming in the first half. The Rebels turned the ball over six times.

Of the Rebels’ 112 passing yards, 60 went to talented receiver and University of Toledo recruit Bryce Mitchell on four catches. Mitchell also provided Bowsher’s lone first-half score with an 87-yard kickoff return for a touchdown.

That score, though, simply made it a 34-7 Massillon lead 1:50 into second quarter. Less than a minute later, though, Jasinski’s second scoring catch pushed the margin to 40-7 with still 9:23 left until the band show.

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2015: Massillon 31, Akron St. Vincent St. Mary 56

SLOWDOWN
Irish stall Tigers’ momentum, rattle playoff hopes for third year in a row

BY CHRIS EASTERLING
Independent sports editor

MASSILLON Big plays were a big problem for Massillon on Friday night against St. Vincent St.Mary. Because of that, the Tigers’ precarious playoff hopes took a big hit.

The Irish once again jumped on Massillon early for a double-digit lead for the fourth consecutive year.

For the third year in a row, they had all the answers when the Tigers would challenge that lead as they won 56-31 at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

“It just seemed like, we’d get going and then we’d sputter,” Massillon coach Nate Moore said. “Everybody was taking turns making mistakes. You can’t do that against good teams. You have to put multiple good series in a row together on both sides of the ball.”

St Vincent-St. Mary, which jumped to a 14-0 lead midway through the first quarter, led by as much as 18 in the first half. Massillon got within seven in the second quarter, and 11 early in the fourth, but couldn’t get closer.

The loss drops Massillon to 4-5 entering the Week 10 showdown at McKinley next Saturday. The Tigers – No. 9 in Division II Region 5 this week – could very well go into the game with no shot at the postseason, depending on other results. “We have good, tough kids who I think are resilient,” St. Vincent-St. Mary coach Dan Boarman said. “We made some mistakes, obviously.

We’re going to have to shore some of those things up. Our kids keep playing.”

St. Vincent-St. Mary’s penchant for getting the big play started on the game’s first play, when Dom Davis hit DeAmonte’ King for a 48-yard pass to the Tiger 17- On the next play, Davis hit Myles Williams for a 17-yard touchdown and a 7-0 Irish lead 20 seconds into the game.

After Massillon was stopped on fourth-and-inches at the St. V 36, the Irish were pushed into a third-and-20 situation. But Davis and King connected again, this time a 45-yard pass to the Tiger 28.

Next play, Markus Hurd took off for a 28-yard touchdown run and a 14-0 Irish lead. Massillon had its share of big plays also. The problem for the Tigers, though, was that they spent the remainder of the game trying to chase down the Irish after their big opening salvo.

The first five Tiger drives reached St. V territory, the last three of which resulted in points. Lee Hurst II caught a pair of touchdown passes – 50- and 21-yarders – while Klay Moll kicked a 28-yard field goal in the first half.

All of that, however, left Massillon staring at a 35-17 halftime deficit.

After the Tigers pulled within 14-10 on Moll’s field goal, the Irish answered with a six-play drive to take a 21-10 lead on Kurd’s 9-yard run. After Massillon got within 21-17 on Hurst’s second touchdown catch with 2:40 left in the half, St V answered with a six-play drive – aided by a Tiger personal foul – to make it 27-17 with 1:03 left in the half. On the very next play by Massillon, the Irish got the ball back at midfield on an interception. A 33-yard pass from Donte Taylor to Davis would set up a 21-yard Davis touchdown run with 20 seconds left in the half, followed by a two-point conversion for an 18-point cushion at the intermission.

Massillon would pull within 42-31 on a pair of Keyshawn Watson scoring runs, the last of which was a 47-yarder with 11 minutes left. However, Kurd’s 73-yard kickoff return set up Davis for a 1-yard scoring plunge to push the Irish back up to 49-31 just 19 seconds later.

Kurd added a 13-yard run with 3:58 left to provide the final margin.

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2015: Massillon 28, Cincinnati Mt. Healthy 26

TIGERS RECOVER
Massillon edges fighting owls to reach 4-4, claws back to .500 for the season

BY CHRIS EASTERLING
Independent sports editor

MASSILLON When the play needed to be made, Massillon made it. When the defensive stop needed to be made, the Tigers were able to come up with it.

Because of that, like a cat with nine lives, Massillon’s season – and beyond – is all very much alive.

Thanks to Friday night’s 28-26 win over Cincinnati Mount Healthy, the Tigers find themselves back at .500 for the first time since after Week Two at 4-4. They also find themselves in control of their own destiny in terms of whether or not their season goes beyond the regular-season finale in two weeks at McKinley.

“We found a way to pull it out,” Massillon coach Nate Moore said afterward. “I’m proud of our kids. They fought hard to the end.” The Tigers, who led 21-7 at halftime and 28-20 with two minutes left, needed two big plays to secure their second consecutive win and third win in their last four games. One came on
defense, the other on offense.

The first came courtesy of a defense that had trouble all night trying to slow down Owl quarterback David Montgomery, who rushed for 281 yards on 32 carries. The final one of those carries was a 36yard touchdown run – his fourth scoring run of the night – with 1:57 remaining that pulled Mount Healthy to within 28-26. However, the two-point conversion play never really was able to get on track for the Owls, and Massillon intercepted the pass attempt to preserve the lead.

“That was a good football team; great player,” Moore said. “The Montgomery kid, No. 7 the quarterback, is really good. Probably one of the best players in Southwest Ohio, if not the state. He’s a real good player. We got the stop with the two-point that was huge.”

Almost as huge was the subsequent possession. After Lee Hurst II recovered the onside kick, Massillon went to work trying to kill off the final 1:56. On the second play of the Tiger possession, Keyshawn Watson got loose for a 32-yard run down to the Owl 15. From there, Massillon took a knee to run out the clock on the win.
It was one of two huge runs by Watson over the final 4:30 of the game. The other came with 4:20 remaining, when, with the Tigers clinging to a 21-20 lead, the sophomore got loose for a 45-yard touchdown run.

The score, plus the fourth Klay Moll point-after kick of the night, gave Massillon an eight-point cushion at 28-20.

“It was huge; it was huge, “Moore said of Watson’s two runs. “We were sputtering on offense. He’s was the spark we needed.”

Watson finished with 128 yards on 16 carries.

Massillon never trailed after it took the first possession of the game and marched 50 yards on six plays to take a 7-0 lead 1:15 into the game. Mike White’s 9-yard run provided the score for the Tigers.

Mount Healthy did tie the game at 7-7 after it recovered a muffed punt by Massillon at the Tiger 30. Montgomery’s 21-yard run with 7:18 left in the first quarter provided the equalizer.

The muffed punt was one of three turnovers for the Tigers on the night. The Owls turned two of those into touchdowns, including taking an interception and converting it into a Montgomery scoring run with 2:38 remaining in the third quarter.

Mount Healthy missed the PAT, though, keeping Massillon in front at 21-20.

The Tigers would take the lead for good when Seth Blankenship connected with Hurst for a 36-yard touchdown pass with 2:20 left in the first quarter. The junior quarterback and senior quarterback-turned-receiver hooked up nine times for 187 yards on the night.

Blankenship was 13-of-23 for 234 yards on the night.

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2015: Massillon 49, Youngstown Ursuline 18

BACK ON TRACK
Hurst shifts to receiver, Blankenship QB in win

BY CHRIS EASTERLING
Independent sports editor

MASSILLON It was just the kind of game Massillon was looking for. Just the kind of home cooking the Tigers needed to leave themselves feeling much better about things.

After an up-and-down quarter-and-a-half, Massillon turned things on midway through the second quarter and gradually pulled away from Ursuline for a 49-18 win at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium on Friday night.

“It felt really good,” Tiger coach Nate Moore said after his team improved to 3-4. “Our kids, they played hard. They played with effort, but they also played well, which has not always happened. They executed and all that stuff. It was a great team victory.”

The Tigers have won two in a row at home, and two out of their last three overall. They return to Paul Brown Tiger Stadium next week when Cincinnati Mount Healthy visits.

They will do so a different-looking team on offense.

Massillon’s offense was looking for a spark of some sort to jolt it back into rhythm after last week’s loss at Austintown Fitch. It may have found it by shifting Lee Hurst II from quarterback to receiver while handing Seth Blankenship the keys to the offense at quarterback full-time.

On the very first play of the game, Blankenship hit Hurst for an 8-yard gain. The bigger gain, though, came with four minutes left in the first half, when Blankenship connected with Hurst for a 37-yard touchdown pass to put Massillon ahead 21-12.

It was one of three first-half touchdown passes for Blankenship, who was 12-of 17 for 204 in the game. He completed a 31-yarder to Austin Jasinski for a 14-12 lead; the strike to Hurst for a 21-12 lead; and a 24-yarder on fourth-and-18 to Montrell Stevens to make it 28-12 with 1:07 left in the half.

In the third quarter, Blankenship hit Hurst on a slip screen, which the latter turned into a 19-yard touchdown for a 35-18 Tiger lead. Hurst finished the game with 81 yards and the two touchdowns on five catches.

“Lee played great,” Moore said. “He had two touchdowns, one way down the field and one on the screen where he broke some tackles. We’re really proud of him.”
Massillon also was proud of its continued defensive improvement during the last few weeks.

The Tigers allowed Ursuline to manage 304 total yards, 190 of which came in the first half.

“Our ends played really well,” said Moore, whose team forced three turnovers, including two interceptions by Kordell Ford. “They played head-first defensively. We were reading our keys and getting off blocks.”

Ursuline came into the game happy to have running back Kimauni Johnson back after he had left last week’s loss with an injury. On the Irish’s second play – their first one was picked off by Ford to set up a Massillon score – Johnson raced 80 yards for a touchdown to pull them within 7-6.

Johnson rushed for 150 yards on 13 first-half carries. However, a shoulder injury in the second quarter knocked him out of the game.

Other than Johnson, though, Massillon’s defense did a solid job in limiting the Irish to just field goals in the first half. Those field goals – of 26- and 27-yards – did give Ursuline a 12-7 lead with 8:59 left before halftime.

Ursuline’s only other touchdown came on a very short field after a Massillon fumble at its own 3. One play later, the Irish scored to make it 28-18 with 9:56 left in the third.

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2015: Massillon 6, Austintown Fitch 7

TOUGH SLEDDING
Offense tough to come by, but Tigers can’t capitalize on chances in defeat to Falcons

By Chris Easterling
Independent sports editor

AUSTINTOWN Massillon tried a little bit of everything to get its offense going Friday night at Austintown Fitch.

The Tigers shuffled players and formations, all trying to provide just the right spark. However, they were unable to find the exact recipe to get things jump-started in what turned into a 7-6 loss to the Falcons at Greenwood Chevrolet Falcon Stadium.

“We couldn’t get into a rhythm offensively,” Massillon coach Nate Moore said after his team fell to 2-4. “We have to get back to work this week. We need to get those things fixed.”

Massillon finished with 186 yards of offense. Both Lee Hurst II – who started the game – and Seth Blankenship had moments at quarterback for the Tigers, with Hurst rushing for a team high 52 yards, while Blankenship was 5-of-9 passing for 69 yards.

However, the Tigers’ biggest issue was finishing off drives. Five times Massillon reached the Fitch side of the 50, including two drives inside the 20, without scoring a point.

The only touchdown for the Tigers came on a 60-yard punt return by Austin Jasinski with 8:38 left in the third quarter to pull them within 7-6. The point-after kick was blocked.

“We put the ball on the ground,” Moore said. “We really couldn’t get the run game going, especially in the first half. We were just not executing, plain and simple.”
The Tigers turned the ball over four times, including a pair of fumbles on fourth down inside the Fitch 30. They also fumbled the ball away on their first play, which set the Falcons up for the only offensive score of the game.

After Massillon fumbled on its own 23, Fitch needed just four plays – along with a Tiger offsides – to reach the end zone. Randy Smith’s 3-yard run with 7:37 left in the first quarter, along with Dylan Correia’s PAT, gave Fitch a 7-0 lead.

“Is it every year like this?” asked Fitch coach Phil Annarella, whose team has won three in a row in the series, the last two by a single point. “This is phenomenal. Thank God we’ve come out on top. … We’ve been very fortunate. They played a great game and we were lucky enough to come out on top.”

Fitch managed just three first downs in the second half, but the last of those was huge. Facing fourth-and-2 from its own 47, it drew an offsides penalty on Massillon to give it a first down with less than two minutes left.

The next play, the ball appeared to pop loose and the Tigers recovered. However, the officials ruled the player down and Massillon couldn’t get the ball back.

The Falcons finished with just 154 yards. Their biggest play was a 44-yard run on a broken play set up by a bad snap.

“The defense played great,” said Moore, whose team picked up an interception from Kordell Ford. “I haven’t watched the film yet, but it looked like our front seven really played very well.

I thought our secondary played well too; they were tackling, coverage was good. … It’s a team game: You win as a team and you lose as a team, and as a team, we have to get back to the grindstone and get back to work.”

GAME STATS