Mentor closes Raiders season

The Cardinals' second-half 21-point surge produced a 34-21 playoff victory.
By PETE MOLLICA
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
MASSILLON -- Warren Harding High coach Thom McDaniels knew that his football players had to keep the Mentor offense off the field as much as possible.
The Raiders did a pretty good job in the first half, but in the second half the Cardinals exploded for 21 points. Mentor went on to a 34-24 victory over Harding in the Division I regional championship game at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.
Harding finished the season with a 9-3 record while Mentor moves on to the Division I state semifinal round next week with a 12-1 record.
"We did a pretty good job of keeping the ball away from them in the first half, but even that wasn't enough," McDaniels said. "They just spread you out all over the field and attack you from every angle. We did a good job, but just not good enough."
The Raiders led throughout most of the first half, until the Cardinals scored in the final seconds of the half to take a 13-10 lead, an advantage they never relinquished.
"The only time you are really safe from their offense is when we had the football," McDaniels said. "Our kids played their hearts out and we threw everything that we had in the arsenal at them to try and keep possession of the football."
Multiple quarterbacks
The Raiders used three different quarterbacks including putting tailback Sidney Glover taking direct snaps.
Glover and senior running back Dan Herron kept the Raiders in the game early.
Herron finished with 117 yards rushing on 21 carries while Glover added 46 more and scored two touchdowns. But as McDaniels said, it wasn't enough.
Mentor had an arsenal of its own led by junior quarterback Bart Tanski, who completed 14 of 21 passes for 193 yards and three touchdowns while adding 88 yards rushing on 16 carries.
When Tanski wasn't toting the ball, it was senior Bill Deitman, who finished with 128 yards on 28 carries and scored two touchdowns.
"Those two are a couple of great individuals," Cardinals coach Steve Trivisonno said. "They are also 4.0 students and they probably won't be going to any Division I schools to play football."
Praise for WGH
Trivisanno had nothing but praise for the Raiders.
"Those were two pretty good backs we watched today, probably as good as we've seen all season long," he said.
After the Cardinals took the lead right before halftime, they wasted little time adding to it, scoring on their first possession by driving 52 yards. Deitman capped the drive with a 4-yard run.
Harding bounced right back and scored on the following possession with senior quarterback Matt Straniak hitting Chris Rucker with a 39-yard pass to the 1-yard line and then Glover taking it over on the next play.
But the Cardinals wouldn't be denied as they drove 73 yards on their next series with Tanski hitting Brandon James with his second TD pass, this one for 49 yards s the big receiver lunged his way into the end zone.
After Mentor missed on a 36-yard field goal attempt, they Raiders couldn't move and the Cardinals drove again, this time 60 yards and Tanski hit Tyler Schutz with a 21-yard scoring toss to build the lead to 34-17.
Harding jumped back into the game on the ensuing kickoff as Rucker hauled in the kick at his own 20 and raced right up the middle of the field 80 yards.
Onside kick didn't work
Harding tried an onside kick and almost got it, but the Cardinals controlled, then punted the Raiders down to their own 1-yard line, a hole Harding never got out of.
Glover got the Raiders going early when he returned the game's opening kickoff out to the Mentor 42-yard line.
From there, Harding stayed primarily on the ground behind Glover and Herron and from the 12-yard line Glover kept the ball and raced right up the middle for the score.
Mentor came back and scored late in the opening period as Deitman broke loose for a 43 yard run and then capped off the 78-yard drive with a one-yard touchdown runs, but Kevin Harper missed the extra point.
Harding extended its lead in the second quarter by driving from its own 34 yard line to the Cardinals 19. When the drive stalled, James Teagarden came on to boot a 36-yard field goal.
Teagarden missed from 32 yards out later in the quarter and the Cardinals drove 80 yards for their first lead of the contest.
Deitman had a 21 yard run and quarterback Bart Tanski had four pass completion's in the drive including the final one of 4 yards to Brandon James for the touchdown.
mollica@vindy.com
For a photo gallery of this game, see & lt;a href="http://media.vindy.com/photos/harding/index.html" & gt;vindy.com. & lt;/a & gt;