Dover football, which is coming off its most impressive win of the season in a 33-0 road playoff rout of a 9-1 Granville team, will make the trip to Dresden on Friday for a second-round Division III playoff battle with the unbeaten Tri-Valley Scotties (11-0).
The No. 11-seeded Tornadoes (8-3) overwhelmed the No. 5-seeded Blue Aces (9-2) last Friday as junior quarterback Jack Judkins threw for 150 yards and a touchdown, slotback Daylen Clark rushed for 80 yards and two touchdowns, and running back Justice Hughes added 75 yards rushing and a score. In addition, two-way standout Caden Schie scored on a blocked field goal.
“They just played loose and played hard, and I’m proud of the way they bounced back (from the New Philadelphia loss in Week 10),” Dover head coach Dan Ifft said of his team. “There’s a whole bunch of kids that played well. (Linemen) Jack McKinnon and TJ Arnold, and then Talon Patton, we moved him to linebacker two weeks ago, and he’s playing there as a young kid.
“We were hurting there a little bit with injuries, and he played a really good game. He was really instinctual and played real tough.”
Friday marks the sixth all-time meeting between the Crimson Tornadoes and Scotties, but they haven’t played since the 2012 campaign.
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Friday also marks the second time Dover and Tri-Valley have met in a postseason game. The two schools met in a playoff game in 2006 with Dover rolling to a 49-14 win at Crater Stadium. Ifft coached the Tornadoes in that game.
Dover leads the all-time series, 3-2.
Tri-Valley is coached by fifth-year head coach Cam West, who worked with former coach Justin Buttermore, who started Tri-Valley’s run of success during his 14-year tenure as the Scotties’ head coach from 2004-2017. Buttermore, who worked under Ifft at Dover, is now the head coach at Upper Arlington, a D-I powerhouse.
Here are five things to watch in the Dover-Tri-Valley matchup:
Lyall is a 6-foot-3, 210-pound senior signal-caller with offers from Dayton, Ohio University, Kent State, Toledo and Youngstown State.
“They’re a really good football team,” said Ifft of the Scotties. “They’re senior laden, so to speak. Their quarterback is a senior, four-year starter and they have some good receivers and big linemen. They have tough kids, and it’s a very prideful community and not that dissimilar from what we just played. They have a few more weapons and really up front they’ve got a few more linemen.” They’re a great football team, they’re 11-0 for a reason.” I think they were in the playoffs last year at this time, so they’re used to being deep in the tournament.”
Other returning All-Ohioans on offense for Tri-Valley are senior running back Jayden Wallace (5-11, 190) and senior receivers Keaton Hahn (6-4, 170) and Bode McCullough (6-0, 155), who is also a standout kicker.
Both Dover and Tri-Valley have explosive players that can take it to the house on any play. The Tornadoes feature the accurate arm of Judkins and speedsters Clark, Hughes and Schie against the strong right-arm of Tri-Valley’s Lyall and his tall tandem of receivers to go with the speed of running back Wallace.
“They’ll be in multiple formations,” said Ifft of the Scotties’ offense. “They’re in a spread and they do a lot of interesting stuff formation-wise. They’re trying to be like everybody else, a little bit innovative, and they are. … You see the maturity in their offense, so to speak. Obviously, this is the year they are expecting big things out of their kids, and they’re getting it.”
Both teams are led by two-way stars along the offensive and defensive lines. Who controls the line of scrimmage to open things up for their playmakers will be a big key to the outcome.
“We’ve got to hold up up front, like always,” Ifft said. “No turnovers would be great, we have to limit penalties, but we have to hold up up front because they’re got a nice group and then they’ve got a lot of good athletes. They like big plays, obviously, who doesn’t, and they’re capable of making a lot of big plays through the air, so we’ve got to really work hard on the back end of our defense.”
Due to many injuries this season, including some season-ending ones, the Tornadoes have had to shuffle some line positions, and many younger players have stepped up to augment some talented veterans. They have been successful, and it’s also created depth for future seasons in the process.
“We’ve kind of built depth by accident (due to countless injuries),” Ifft said. “I’m pretty proud of them and very excited for them. They earned it. Coming off a tough loss (in Week 10), by Tuesday they were a whole different group. It was, let’s get this done, and I was real proud of them. It was one of those growth moments that makes you feel like a proud parent — my kid grew up a little bit, and I actually felt that way.”
Dover posted a 33-0 shutout of a talented Granville team last week while holding the Blue Aces to just 135 yards of offense.
Meanwhile, Tri-Valley, champion of the Muskingum Valley League (Big Division), rolled to a 43-12 opening-round playoff win over Carrollton, which finished second to West Branch in the Eastern Buckeye Conference this season.
The defense that can get enough extra stops against their opponent’s lethal offense will play a role Friday.
The Tornadoes are averaging 32.1 points-per-game and giving up 21.1 ppg. The Scotties are scoring 42 points-per-game and have allowed 94 points all season for an average of 8.5 ppg.
The Scotties’ regular-season wins were recorded against Meadowbrook (43-12), Licking Heights (31-0), Clinton-Massie (14-13), Morgan (65-0), New Lexington (41-14), Maysville (66-20), River View (65-0), Philo (35-7), Sheridan (21-9) and John Glenn (38-7). They beat three teams with winning records in the regular season in Clinton-Massie (9-2), New Lexington (10-1) and Sheridan (6-4).
“We’re kind of playing with house money. We’re not supposed to be here,” Ifft said. “We’re pretty loose and pretty excited about the opportunity, but by the same token, we understand the task is pretty big because they’re a really good football program but that’s what tournament play is.
“We’ll throw our helmets out there and see what happens and see what we can do.”
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