Gallery by Greg BarnettĀ
Princeton – Oak Hill head coach Davon Marion knew what the keys to success were heading into Saturday’s Class AAA playoff game against No. 5 Princeton. He wanted to slow the Tigers’ explosive plays and shorten the game with his run-heavy offense.
Executing the plan was the hard part.
Four of Princeton’s five touchdowns came from over 30 yards out as the Tigers rolled to a 37-7 win Saturday at Hunnicutt Stadium in Princeton.
The victory marked Princeton’s first playoff win since 2002 – the last time it hosted a postseason game. It won’t be the last time Hunnicutt sees a postseason game this year either with No. 13 Parkersburg slated to invade next week at a time and date to be determined.
Marion’s group tested Princeton early, forcing its offense to drive the field, which it did successfully for an eight-play 51-yard scoring drive that ended with a 13-yard touchdown run from Marquel Lowe. But the Tigers’ following four drives, all of which ended in touchdowns, consisted of four, one, five and five plays.
“They’re a talented bunch,” Marion said. “They got several playmakers and we hoped to limit some of them. But I mean, like I told our kids this week, we’d be fools if we thought they weren’t gonna make some plays. We just wanted to limit the big plays, and I mean, it’s impressive what (Princeton) Coach (Keith) Taylor and his staff do and they game plan really well and we gave him a couple of different looks on defense and they were still able to execute. Those guys, those seniors on that football team have been in the playoffs since they’ve been in high school. So they’re battle tested and this is the year for them to actually make a run at it. So I’m happy for Coach Taylor and his crew. Sucks for our guys, but like I just told our underclassmen, now you see what a top-five triple-A team looks like. So if you want to get to that level, our offseason starts in a month and we’ll see who’s really dedicated to this game and this program.”
To the Red Devils’ credit they answered Princeton’s opening score with a 13-play drive that ate up nearly six minutes of clock, ending in a nine-yard touchdown pass from Malachi Lewis to Armonyi Hicks. But three turnovers and a relentless pass rush from Mikey Digiacomo and Kalum Kiser that resulted in 10 plays that ended in a loss proved too much for the Red Devils to overcome.
“So we worked all week on a three-man front like we did against Parkersburg South and thought that was going to be able to stop them,” Taylor said. “Obviously it didn’t coach and coach (Eric) McClanahan, you know our first-year defensive coordinator, made the switch after that first drive, he said, go back to our base. Let’s do what we do and stop fooling around. We went to that and they were completely neutralized.
“I thought, Mikey and Kalum went berserk. I don’t know the exact numbers but they went crazy. And you know, now that we have Marquel in the box it helps us a lot with Cooper on the edge and setting that edge, being able to come on the key screens, and then Marquel was free to play in the middle. I think our defense is really starting to come into its own. We’re becoming opportunistic. We’re punching the ball out. You know, we’re having fun on defense and we’ve been having fun on offense. I think that’s turning the corner for us and we’re doing what we need to do to be able to stop teams and get after the quarterback.”
With Oak Hill bracketing Princeton WR and all-stater Dom Collins early, the Tigers went to their No. 2 receiver Brad Mossor who delivered touchdown catches of 64 and 62 yards, sandwiching a 77-yard touchdown run from Lowe. The scores gave Princeton a commanding 27-7 halftime lead.
“They went with the bracket on Dom then they went to what looked like a goal line defense,” Taylor said. “I haven’t really looked at the tape – we were trying to get defensive stuff but we were scoring so fast we had a hard time getting defensive stuff straight, but they were pretty much ready to go along with one linebacker so we knew if our offensive line got a hat on hat Marquel would go make that linebacker miss. It’s just another thing that we always talk about – you take what the defense gives you. And today I think we did a great job of doing what we needed to do to get guys in space.
“We still tried to get the ball to Dom. I thought Brad did an incredible job. We started to go away from him for a little while. and tried to go back to him towards the end. Second half, hats off and they did a great job. I think they limited us. I don’t know how well we did the second half. You know, but I think our guys got a little tired. We had a bunch of stupid penalties and a bunch of things called back. I can’t remember how many touchdowns or big plays we had called back so we got to make sure we clean those up.”
Penalties and an improved defensive effort resulted in just 10 points in the second half for the hosts but their defense closed the deal.
Down multiple scores, the Red Devils were forced to the air, allowing the Princeton pass rush to pin its ears and relentlessly pressure QB Malachi Lewis.
“I don’t think they were blitzing, I think they were just beating guys and that’s on us,” Marion said. “We’ve got to be able to block four guys with our five guys and they just played a little harder at times than we did and some of the sacks killed us and three turnovers changed the game. We couldn’t get out of our own way. And I mean, I thought the second half we stopped them several times on defense and that’s when the turnovers come in. So we couldn’t get ourselves off the ground once they put us down but we built back this program, we’re not going anywhere and we expect better from ourselves and underclassmen know what it takes now to compete at this level.”
Princeton QB Chance Barker finished 11 of 15 passing for 212 yards and three touchdown passes, connecting with Mossor three times for 128 yards and two scores. Lowe finished with 160 yards rushing and two touchdowns.
Oak Hill’s Malachi Lewis completed 10 passes for 153 yards, throwing a touchdown and an interception in the loss.
OH: 7 0 0 0 – 7
P: 14 13 7 3 – 37
Scoring Plays
