CANTON − The McKinley Bulldogs limped into halftime Friday, Nov. 7 and got caught 7-7 in the third quarter.
Medina socking it to an 8-2 team a second straight Friday seemed quite possible as the Bees rode momentum in Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium.
The Bulldogs woke up, roared on all cylinders in a 30-minute drag race, and swatted the Bees 30-7. The OHSAA Division I football playoff win puts McKinley in a Round of 16 game next Friday at Mentor.
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Renzy Parnell looked and sounded ecstatic in the locker room after his first postseason game as head coach of the Bulldogs.
“Offense, defense, special teams, whatever we had to do, we did it,” he roared. “That’s a good win. Be proud of yourself. Be very proud of yourself.”
McKinley takes a 9-2 record into the game at Mentor, which is 11-0 after routing Jackson 52-6.
Medina was coming off a 28-25 upset of 8-2 Strongsville, but the Bees gained only 30 yards against McKinley’s swarming defense in the first half. The Bulldogs led just 7-0, though, and it was 7-7 when Medina drove the length of the field after the second-half kickoff.
McKinley was coming off a bye week, following an emotional 21-14 loss to Massillon.
“We had the fortune and misfortune of the bye,” Parnell said. “You’ve got the rust. You’re coming down from a big game. But we also got a chance to be healthier.
“Our guys got it together and fought. The defense was great all night against a tough and at times unorthodox offense.
“Our offense battled. We ran the ball great all night. We came out in the second half intending to finish.”
Senior quarterback Trent Hayden admitted the Bulldogs took the Massillon game hard.
“The goal was to not let Massillon beat us twice,” he said. “They beat us once, and we put it past us rather than dwelling on it. We made our adjustments going into the week, and we made adjustments in this game.
“Momentum is a huge thing, and we got it after they tied it. We had a great second half.”
Medina arrived with a weak record (4-7) but a certain air.
The Bees’ game plan came from one of the region’s top offensive minds, ninth-year head coach Larry Laird.
Ring a bell?
Before piloting Strongsville from 2014-16 and relocating to Medina in 2017, Laird was head coach of the Bees in 2010. Medina faced McKinley in the first round of the 2010 playoffs as a huge underdog, in that McKinley was coming off a 40-17 win at Massillon.
Laird’s Bees beat the Bulldogs 31-28. He found out after the season he didn’t have a teaching job, prompting him to return to Avon Lake.
He had spent nine years as Avon Lake’s offensive coordinator, including 2003, when the Shoremen beat Trenton Edgewood in the Division II state championship game in Massillon.
Laird helped develop Drew Allar into Ohio’s Mr. Football in 2021, when the Bees scored big and went 13-1. Allar left for Penn State after that, but Laird’s 2023 team scored even bigger, and won three playoff games.
The 2025 Bees went just 3-7 in the regular season but got everyone’s attention by beating an 8-2 team, Strongsville, in the first round.
Laird’s reputation on offense presented a challenge to Parnell, who made a name as defensive coordinator at perennial D2 title contender Akron Hoban.
Medina tried to attack the Bulldogs with a 6-foot-5 junior quarterback Beckett Vogrin, but he was getting nowhere, other than coming close on a couple deep throws. He came to life in the third quarter and made it a game for a while.
The Bulldogs established the run with their workhorse, Kyelin West, but gave important carries to defensive stalwart Shad Davis, who approached his chance on offense relentlessly and scored two touchdowns.
“It’s playoff football,” Davis said. “Anybody can win. We wanted to win, and we executed.”
Davis ran 14 times for 87 yards and three touchdowns. Kyelin West carried 19 times for 128 yards.
Medina let it all hang out. The Bees tried an onside kick to start the game and another one after scoring on the first drive of the second half.
“If we had gotten that second one, I think it would have been a different game,” said Coach Laird. “We had our chances.
“Take nothing from McKinley. They have guys with speed we can’t match. They played a really good ballgame.”
Here’s how the game unfolded through our live updates.
Final | McKinley 30, Medina 7
The Bulldogs are moving on to the regional semifinals in Region 1 of Division after their 23-point win over the Bees. McKinley improves to 9-2 and will play at unbeaten Mentor in the next round. The Cardinals won big over Jackson.
Canton McKinley football pulling away with safety, touchdown
A late safety and a touchdown run by Derrick Gordon helped McKinley expand its lead to 30-7 with 2:20 left in the game. Gordon scored on a 20-yard run.
Medina threatens, but Damere McClellan intercepts for McKinley
Medina patiently drove, taking time for strategic if time-consuming runs, on a drive that ended with a tipped-ball interception by Damere McClellan near the goal line.
McKinley kept its 21-7 lead midway through the fourth quarter.
Now you see a dogfight, now you don’t. Pups score again.
Up 14-7, McKinley kept the momentum with a three and out, but the Bulldogs failed to get the field possession they wanted when a punt out of the end zone wasn’t fielded and rolled 20 yards to the McKinley 43.
A 33-yard catch and run by Darius Hill put the Pups on the 20. Hill squirted loose from tacklers on one of the biggest plays of the game.
Shad Davis powered four yards inside for a his second touchdown of the night. One moment, it seemed, McKinley fell into a 7-7 tie. The next, the Bulldogs led 21-7 with 9:44 left.
McKinley fights back on Shad Davis’ hard running
After getting caught at 7-7, McKinley faced fourth and 1½ just inside the 50.
McKinley coach Renzy Parnell got a timeout and went for it, getting a 5-yard gain from Shad Davis.
Davis made a determined run on the next play, bucking for 20 yards as if the game depended on him.
Out of the full house, three backs in T formation, Davis ran 13 yards to the 1. A mishandled snap and fumble, recovered by the Bulldogs, was a downer, leading to third and goal from the 2, but Davis found daylight around the left side and scored.
Thomas Markowski’s kick gave McKinley a 14-7 lead with 2:22 left in the third quarter. It stayed 14-7 after three.
Medina gets nowhere in first half, opens second half with TD
Up 7-0, Medina took over on the 19 after Thomas Mankowski’s kickoff to start the second half.
QB Beckett Vogrin set up a screen nicely on a 15-yard gain, Medina’s longest of the night. The Bees didn’t have 50 yards all told in the first half.
On third and 8 from the McKinley 40, Vogrin scrambled for nice yardage for the second time in the series.
Loosened up, facing the spread, McKinley gave up a wide-open, 20-yard touchdown b pass to Ashton Knowles. It’s 7-7 with 7:44 left in the third quarter.
Bulldogs bumping into surprisingly pesky Medina ‘D’
Defense kept McKinley in charge of the field-position battle. The Bulldogs took over at midfield after the Bees’ third punt.
Renzy Parnell has drawn compliments for running a disciplined team in his first year as McKinley’s head coach, but a few sloppy things get the Bulldogs from building on a 7-0 lead.
There was a 12-men-on-the field flag, a false start, and finally a fumble that gave the Bees possession in a one-score game. Medina made it to midfield before punting.
McKinley took over on the 12 and soon got a 15-yard run from Kyelin West, but Medina’s defense had fallen into a pattern of not allowing sustained possessions.
A roughing-the-punter penalty gave the Bulldogs life, and the ball at midfield. West went outside and ran for 25 yards, but a holding penalty stalled the threat, which actually ended on an interception.
Shortly after getting flagged for a facemask grab, the Bulldogs took a 7-0 lead to halftime.
McKinley defense repels Bees through one quarter; still 7-0
McKinley’s defense forced a three and out on Medina’s first series. The Bees lined up as if to go for it on fourth and long inside their own 30, but the ruse turned into a quick punt that rolled dead 53 yards downfield.
McKinley’s inside running game was hit or miss against a three-man front anchored by Cliff Nicholson (6-3, 235), but the hits were effective, as on a 17-yard run by the gut by Shad Davis.
A third-down sack by Nicholson led to a punt.
Medina mustered just one first-quarter first down behind 6-foot-5 senior quarterback Beckett Vogrin. The Bees punted on fourth and 18 on their second possession.
Medina tries a surprise on opening kick; it backfires
Medina coach Larry Laird’s team won the toss and deferred to the second half, but not really.
The Bees tried an onside kick that came close to working but squirted off some hands out of bounds.
McKinley took over near midfield and quickly hit a screen pass to Larry Hill, for 15 yards. A third-and-long run of 15 yards by Kyelin West. Another chunk gain by West created a first and goal at the 2. but an inside run on first down lost yardage.
The next play was out of a full-house backfield and resulted in a well-blocked 4-yard TD run by Shad Davis. Thomas Mankowski’s kick made it 7-0 with five minutes gone in the game.
McKinley faces experienced coach in Medina’s Larry Laird
Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium is lit up and wet as a persistent mist wafts past the lights.
Medina is warming up under watch from its ninth-year head coach, Larry Laird, who came to the Bees after a 13-17 run at Strongsville from 2014-16. Before that, he was offensive coach on state championship teams at Kenton and Avon Lake.
Laird’s 2021 team went 13-1 with that year’s Ohio Mr. Football, Drew Allar, at quarterback. Allar is at Penn State now, injured and eyeing the 2026 NFL draft.
Laird’s 2024 and 2025 teams are a combined 6-16, with the bright spot coming last week with a first-round upset of Strongsville.
Medina’s next stop after OHSAA playoffs: A new league
The Medina community is buzzing about the Bees’ imminent move from the Greater Cleveland Conference to the 16-team Suburban League. They will be the largest school in the league, with about 1,500 students, and are projected to be in a division with Stow, Hudson, Nordonia, Solon, Wadsworth, North Royalton and Highland.
Medina is in its ninth season under head coach under head coach Larry Laird, who came to the Bees after a 13-17 run at Strongsville from 2014-16. Before that, he was offensive coach on state championship teams at Kenton and Avon Lake.
Laird’s 2021 team went 13-1 with that year’s Ohio Mr. Football, Drew Allar, at quarterback. Allar is at Penn State now, injured and eyeing the 2026 NFL draft.
Laird’s 2024 and 2025 teams are a combined 6-16, with the bright spot coming last week with a first-round upset of Strongsville.
The Medina community is buzzing about the Bees’ imminent move from the Greater Cleveland Conference to the 16-team Suburban League. They will be the largest school in the league, with about 1,500 students, and are projected to be in a division with Stow, Hudson, Nordonia, Solon, Wadsworth, North Royalton and Highland.
McKinley football’s OHSAA playoff history in second-round games
The Bulldogs are 12-8 all-time in second-round games, and they are favored in this one with an 8-2 record coming off a first-round bye. Medina made the playoffs despite a 3-7 record and then stunned Strongsville (previously 8-2) by a 28-25 score in the first round.
Canton McKinley football scores, schedule
The Canton Repository sports department can be contacted via email at sports@cantonrep.com.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Ohio high school football playoffs score, McKinley vs. Medina live updates, recap
Reporting by Steve Doerschuk, Canton Repository / The Repository
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