2018

 

 

Regional Quarter-final, Big Red, 9-1, vs. Akron Buchtel Griffins, 6-4, Saturday, November 3rd, 2018, at Death Valley.

STEUBENVILLE —Reno Saccoccia was singing the praises of his “grunts” following Big Red’s 38-13 Division IV, Region 13 quarterfinal victory over Akron Buchtel Saturday night inside Harding Stadium.

“Tonight our grunt guys, that’s our offensive line, our tight ends and our fullbacks, did their job. The same thing with our guys on the defensive line — they did the grunt work,” Saccoccia said after watching his Big Red improve to 10-1. “Our linebackers, backs and skilled players made plays and that’s what makes a team. Our grunts did their job and our skilled guys did their job.”

Steubenville, the region’s second seed, will meet third-seeded Hubbard in the semifinals this Saturday. The site for that game will be announced by the OHSAA today.

“That was a game,” said Saccoccia. “That is the toughest first rounder that we have ever won. We’ve had other tough first round games that we lost but that was the toughest we’ve won.

“I have all the respect in the world for Buchtel’s coach (Ricky Powers), his staff and his players. Those players are being coached the right way. He definitely was the best back (Powers led the Griffins to state championship game victories over Steubenville in 1987 and 1988) we ever went against. Tonight, was our night. If it was another night, there might have been a different story.”

Tayveon Crawford was one of Big Red’s skilled guys who did his job and then some. The junior tailback, thanks to another strong performance by his teammates in the trenches, ran for 185 yards and three touchdowns. All his scores came in the first quarter on runs of 5, 48 and 17 as Steubenville raced out to a 20-0 lead.

On his 53-yard sprint, Crawford burst through a huge hole, cut the outside, did a little tight roping down the sideline and raced to the end zone. During the opening 12 minutes, he ran for 147 yards.

The Griffins, who finished at 6-5, made it 20-7 in the second period on a 19 pass yard from Mychael Leno to Marquest Foster. Big Red led 23-7 at the intermission thanks to a 33-yard field goal by outstanding senior kicker Ian Phillips, who also nailed three conversion kicks.

Buchtel cut the deficit to 10 (23-13) midway through the third when Leno snuck in from a yard away. After that, it was all Big Red.

Junior fullback Dave Tuttle capped two Steubenville marches with scoring runs of 7 and 1.

“They got up on us real fast and we were playing catch up the whole time,” Powers said. “Then we cut it to 23-13 and we had some opportunities in the second half. Unfortunately, we just didn’t make things happen.

“Steubenville is a well-coached team. Reno does a great job and his kids are tough. They ran down hill on us and were able to pound us pretty good up front on defense.”

Big Red finished with 335 rushing yards. Junior tailback Joe Brown contributed 54 and junior fullback Niko Kausky bulled his way for 52.

“We had a quick start and a strong finish,”Saccoccia said. “We did have a little lull in the middle and I’m not sure what caused that, but I really liked the way we finished strong.”

Leno completed 21 of 29 passes for 187 yards. Chase Powers had nine receptions. The Griffins ran the football 22 times for a negative 56 yards.

Big Red’s defense delivered 12 sacks with senior lineman Kwadre Williams recording seven, senior defensive end Jaziah Blackwell had three and senior linebacker Erik Lulla registered two.

“Our coaches put together a great game plan and our players did a great job of executing it,”Saccoccia said. “The players trusted our game plan and we as coaches trusted their execution.

“We knew physical play and speed would come from both teams. We felt the team that executed the best would win the game and our guys did a fantastic job of executing our game plan.”

Big Red now holds an 8-2 lead in its all-time series with Buchtel.

“You always want to see progress and we saw progress this year,” Powers said. “We had opportunities in each game we lost. You just can’t make mistakes against good teams.

“Tonight, we just didn’t execute. They got up on us really fast and it’s hard to play catch up against a team that runs downhill the way Steubenville does.”

Steubenville 38, Akron Buchtel 13

Butchel 0 7 6 0 — 13

Big Red 20 3 8 7 — 38

BIG RED: Crawford 5 run (Phillips kick)

BIG RED: Crawford 48 run (Phillips kick)

BIG RED: Crawford 17 run (kick blocked)

BUCHTEL: Foster 19 pass from Leno (West kick)

BIG RED: Phillips 33 field goal

BUCHTEL: Leno 1 run (kick blocked)

BIG RED: Tuttle 7 run (Kausky pass from Duggan)

BIG RED: Tuttle 1 run (Phillips kick)

RUSHING: Buchtel 22-(-56)-1 (Leno 19-(-63)-1; Young-Jones 2-(-1); West 1-8); Big Red 56-335-5 (Crawford 27-185-3; Kausky 9-52; Brown 5-54; Tuttle 3-10-2; Blackwell 1-4; R. Mitchell 6-12; Bozica 1-0; McCartney 2-6; Kernahan 2-0).

PASSING: Buchtel 21-29-187-1 (all by Leno); Big Red 3-10-46-0-1 (Criss 2-9-39-0-1; R. Mitchell 1-1-7).

RECEIVING: Buchtel 21-187-1 (Powers 9-52; Keen 2-18; Johnson 3-49; Foster 4-51-1; Williams 2-16; Young-Jones 1-1); Big Red 3-46 (Rauch 1-7; Arlesic 1-30; Kausky 1-9).

FIRST DOWNS: Buchtel 12; Big Red 17.

PENALTIES-YARDS: Buchtel 7-67; Big Red 6-55.

PUNTS: Buchtel 4-32; Big Red 2-27.

FUMBLES-LOST: Buchtel 1-1; Big Red 0-0.

 

 

Regional Semi-final, Big Red, 10-1, vs. Hubbard Eagles, 10-1, Saturday, November 10th, 2018, at Boardman.

WRAPING UP — Steubenville’s Dylan Cunningham tackles Hubbard’s Davion Daniels in a Division IV, Region 13 semifinal contest on Saturday in Boardman. (Photo by Joe Catullo)

BOARDMAN — Ohio will have a new Division IV football champion thanks to a stellar effort by Hubbard Saturday night inside Spartan Stadium.