ONTARIO — There’s nothing one-dimensional about this Galion Tigers football team.
One week, the Tigers go toe-to-toe with the No. 1 team in the state in an offensive shootout. The next they are winning in grind-it-out fashion against a host that has gone to the playoffs each of the last three seasons.
Friday night was the latter as Galion made a 5-yard touchdown run by Sam Evans on the second play of the second quarter stand up for a 7-0 Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference victory at Ontario.
Galion had scored at least 34 points in each of its first five games, so on the bright side, it found a different way to win.
“Hats off to their defense; they did a great job against us,” Galion coach Matt Dick said. “Obviously, we’ve got to watch the film and see what happened. There’s a lot of things (offensively) that just weren’t good, both coaches and assignments.
“We can get a lot better on that side of the ball, but when you play great defense, it always keeps you in the game.”
Ontario coach Aaron Eckert obviously had a different perspective of the outcome. His team held Galion 30.7 points under its scoring average and lost.
The Warriors (2-3, 0-2 MOAC) were stopped three times in the red zone, turning it over on downs twice and getting picked off in the end zone another time.
“In close games, your mistakes are magnified,” Eckert said. “Tonight we went down the field on our first drive and stalled out on a fourth-and-short call. The next drive down the field, we throw a pick in the end zone, and the rest of the night we couldn’t find it offensively.
“Our defense did a fantastic job of bailing us out and getting turnovers, getting stops, getting them to punt. We just have to execute better (on offense). We have to find a way moving forward.”
Those first two offensive series for Ontario set the tone for the rest of the night. The end zone interception that ruined the second drive was made by sophomore Kurt Hay, whose twin brother Kane caught a 38-yard pass from quarterback Ayden Schmidt on the previous series to set up the game’s only touchdown.
Hard to believe that would be the only noise offensively, especially just one week after a wild affair where Galion nearly upset Shelby in an eventual 45-34 loss.
Maybe the Tigers were still catching their breath on offense after that near-miss.
“I think it’s just the wear and tear of the season,” Dick said. “We’re small (Division IV) and we’ve played a lot of big teams (three DIII schools so far and the No. 1-ranked DIV outfit in Shelby). Maybe we were licking our wounds a little bit on Monday (after losing to Shelby), but hats off to our kids. Monday wasn’t great, but Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday practices were good. We just didn’t execute on offense.
“The plays were there. We just didn’t complete them, but we’ll come back, watch the film and put kids in better positions.”
Showing they can excel the last two weeks under equally difficult yet different circumstances should be the takeaway for the Tigers.
“It’s a tough group of kids; they really are,” Dick said. “It starts with our senior class down to our sophomores, and then we have freshmen on our special teams. It’s the whole team. They’ve bought in. They’re really a tight-knit unit. They’re going to fight you to the end.”
Ditto for Ontario, which hung tough even though offense was hard to come by. After scoring a combined 94 points in wins over Norwalk and Madison, the Warriors have tallied just 10 points in their last eight quarters, which includes a 14-10 loss last week to Clear Fork.
The Warriors, who have made the post-season each of the last three years under Eckert, were shut out for the first time since a first-round exit at the hands of Mansfield Senior in the 2022 playoffs.
“(Galion’s) coached well and they do a nice job,” Eckert said. “From a team morale standpoint, we’ve got to find a way to get out of this rut we’re in right now. I’ve got faith in our coaches and players to get it figured out. Defensively, we played well enough to win.”
This was Galion’s second shutout in three weeks. In fact, outside of the Shelby game, the Tigers have given up only 20 points, collectively, in their other four games. They still have life in the MOAC race, although it’s hard to see anybody beating the Whippets.
“We’re only focused on going 1-0 every week,” Dick said. “Any team in the MOAC can beat you on any given night. There were many years where there were huge upsets. We really try to sell that (possibility). On Monday, that was the message. We’ve got to play (Ontario) tough or we’re going to lose this one.”
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: ‘They’re going to fight you to the end’: Galion makes lone TD stand up for shutout over Ontario
Reporting by Jon Spencer, Mansfield News Journal / Mansfield News Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
