ORRVILLE − Orrville linebacker/wide receiver Tyson Woodruff was asked after the Red Riders beat their nonconference rivals Wooster on Friday evening, “What did the team want to establish the most coming in?” He thought about it and then simply said, “Basically, just to kick their a**. Point blank.”
Tell’em how you really feel Tyson!
First-year Orrville head coach Brent Besancon was a little more meek in describing what he wanted to see out of his team in the season opener.
“Do the fundamentals well, take care of the ball and rally to the ball on defense,” said Besancon.
All three of those areas Orrville did well in, especially taking care of the ball (zero turnovers) and rallying to the football (defensive line early was active and seemed to win many of the upfront battles), that ended up resulting in the Red Riders winning resoundingly − as Woodruff bluntly put it! − over Wooster 56-23, making it the second straight year Orrville beat Wooster handily (41-18 last year).
Orrville wide receiver/defensive back Breylon McDuffie said in the first game of the season, we wanted to “dominate.”
“Dominate first game. New coach. Two years ago we played them here and they had a game-winning field goal,” McDuffie said, who caught two touchdowns on the night. “That’s the only thing that was brought up all week.”
Orrville led 42-16 at the half and to go along with their four offensive touchdowns in the first half, the Red Riders added two defensive touchdowns on two pick-sixes, one of them by McDuffie.
“Yeah, that was crazy. I saw the first one happen but I never saw mine coming. My team helped block. I got it and it was crazy,” he said.
“I wanted us to win the turnover battle by just us not giving them the ball but obviously when you get plays like that, it swung the game,” Besancon said, who gave credit to his assistant coaches for their gameplan this week and loved the body language his team presented throughout the victory.
For the longest running high school football rivalry in Wayne County (103 years), Orrville won the 2025 edition and Besancon talked about the history of the rivalry afterwards.
“I’ve always been a take one week at a time guy but you can’t take away from the history of this rivalry,” he said. “It’s a special win but come Monday, I like to bring a lunch pal in and get to work next week.”
jamessimpson@gannett.com
Twitter/X: @JamesSimpsonII
This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Orrville’s resounding first half puts Wooster away early in season opening win
Reporting by James Simpson II, Wooster Daily Record / The Daily Record
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
