The Irish will play Columbus Bishop Ready at Canton Central Catholic’s
Klinefelter Stadium.

By TOM WILLIAMS

VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF

YOUNGSTOWN — Ursuline High football coach Dan Reardon has faith that when the chips are down, his Irish can persevere.

“Every time our kids’ backs have been against the wall, they’ve answered the call this year,” Reardon said. “They have tremendous heart.”

On the way to an 8-2 regular season and the second seed in the Division V Region 17 playoffs, the Irish escaped several close calls.

After two blowout wins to open the season, the Irish struggled against Fitch (21-14). In Week 5, they rallied to defeat Chardon (35-28).

Most importantly, the Irish traveled to Akron and defeated Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary, 33-30 in overtime, in Week 10 to earn the playoff berth. A loss in that game most likely meant that Ursuline would have sat out the postseason for the third straight season.

“Early in the year, they were down [late]. With two minutes to go and they put together a drive to win the game,” Reardon said of the Fitch game. “Against Chardon, we were down by two scores in the fourth quarter and we [did] what we needed to do to win.

“Against St. V’s, we were down by 10 points in the fourth quarter and we won the game in overtime,” Reardon said. “Our kids have tremendous heart, they have tremendous character.”

Looking at their playoff scores, it appears that the Irish (11-2) haven’t been challenged. Ursuline defeated Bedford St. Peter Chanel (43-0), Apple Creek Waynedale (29-6) and South Range (31-7).

But Reardon and his players weren’t happy with their effort against Waynedale. That plus the motivation that the media disrespected them were their incentives before the South Range game.

“We kind of struggled and I wanted to make it up to my teammates,” quarterback Lamar McQueen said of the Waynedale game.

Offensive lineman Ryan Kelly said, “We had a bad game against Apple Creek, we really struggled. So they put it all on us this week and we came together as a unit and we took care of business.”

The Irish dominated the Raiders after Allen Jones ran 67 yards on the first play from scrimmage for a quick 7-0 lead.

“It was huge,” Kelly said of Jones’ run. “We talked all week about setting the tone, coming out early and showing everybody what Ursuline is about. I think the first play really did that.”

Asked why his players felt they did badly in a 23-point win, Reardon said, “We won the game by a couple of scores but I don’t believe it was out best effort. We turned it over twice in first quarter and gave them a very short field. We were sloppy with the ball in the first half, we didn’t play our best by any stretch.”

The South Range game was another story as the Irish rushed for early 400 yards in the first half in building up a 31-0 lead.

“I sat the whole second half and that’s always a good thing,” McQueen said.

Reardon admitted it was probably the biggest win of his coaching career.

“It’s the first time I’ve been to the state semifinals,” the fifth-year Irish coach said. “We’ve had maybe more exciting wins, but never in a game of this magnitude.”

Linebacker Nick McGahagan said the Irish “came in confident, but we didn’t come in cocky. We came in strong, we worked hard all week.”

Friday, the Irish will look to earn their second state appearance in eight seasons when they play Columbus Bishop Ready (12-1) in the state semifinal at Canton Central Catholic’s Klinefelter Stadium.

“We knew if we got into the playoffs by beating Saint V’s that we definitely would be a great team in the playoffs,” McGahagan said. “We knew we worked hard all year, we set our goal for state and we knew we would be scary to everyone else if we made the playoffs.”

williams@vindy.com