SIDNEY – Niles Keller rushed for 240 yards on 21 carries as Marion Local cruised to an easy 24-3 victory over Lehman Catholic in an OHSAA Division-VI Region 24 quarterfinal on Saturday at Sidney High School’s 30-0 Field.
The victorious Flyers held Lehman to 137 hard-fought yards of total offense while they were selfishly stockpiling 353 for themselves, largely by taking advantage of most of the big play opportunities that were presented to them.
Marion Local (6-5) will face Covington (8-3) next Saturday in a regional semifinal at Kettering’s Rousch Stadium. The Buccaneers qualified for the second-round contest by upsetting their undefeated Cross County Conference rivals from Ansonia, 28-7.
“I don’t know if I would call it pressure, but we didn’t want to be the first Midwest Athletic Conference team to lose (in the post season),” said ML head coach, Tim Goodwin.
“This was a very physical football game. Lehman has a very good offensive and defensive front. (For me) I thought our defense really stood out.
“Lehman has a very good running attack,” he continued, “and our rushing defense has given up some yards, so it was good for me to see.”
Kaleb Goins led the way for LC on Saturday with 76 rushing yards on 19 carries.
Sadly, the Cavaliers’ (7-4) 2009 football season has reached its inevitable conclusion. They had another great run this fall, but now it’s time for them to turn in their uniforms.
“(Marion Local) beat us at our own game,” LC head coach Richard Roll said after the game. “So, we have to keep going at it. It was pretty much rock ‘em-sock ‘em football, but we knew that coming into the game.
“We were thinking that we would be able to pound on them a little more than we were able to, but early on we made some mistakes—and they made more big plays than we did.”
The Flyer’s Adam Schulte opened up the night’s scoring in the second quarter with a 3-yard touchdown run. Just moments later, team mate Keller broke loose down the left sideline for a 69-yard gain.
That run set up a Mitch Bergman 24-yard field goal.
The Cavaliers’ Wade Schroeder answered the challenge by stroking a 22-yard field goal of his own and the score at halftime was Marion Local 10, Lehman Catholic 3.
Early in the third quarter, Keller converted a modest off-left-tackle-trap play into a 55-yard touchdown romp to extend the score to 17-3 and effectively end the ball game.
After a clutch week ten win over their highly-rated MAC rivals from Anna and a first round win in the playoffs, the Flyers now look more like the team everyone projected them to be in the preseason—rather than the turnover prone losers they became in the second half of the season.
After having played Delphos St. John’s, Coldwater, and St. Henry—all in one, horrible MAC scheduled murderer’s row—and having survived to tell the tale, the Flyer’s performance on Saturday night demands that all D-VI observers take close notice.
And, now that the winter wheat has pretty much been separated from the post-season chaff, should we re-evaluate and consider Marion Local and Delphos as the co-favorites to win the D-VI region 24 championship?
Or even the D-VI state championship itself?
“Five and Five? We’re not the favorite!” said Goodwin, laughing. “Wow. We went through a spell where we had some guys hurt and we played some darned good teams—but we didn’t play very well.
“It was frustrating because we aren’t used to losing five games in a row like that. Now, we’ve won three games in a row under our belt and everyone is the same now.”
So, have you been looking for a quirky storyline to follow in the post season? Then, stay tuned, folks. The next two weeks in region 24 should be really good!
