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Ursuline ready to face another unbeaten team
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Mooney Vs. Ursuline
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Div. V semifinal
Who: Ursuline vs. Ridgewood
When: 7:30 tonight
Where: Lowell Klinefelter Stadium, Canton
The Irish are playing for their third straight state appearance.
By Tom Williams
YOUNGSTOWN — Overcoming a 14-point halftime deficit has taught the Ursuline High football team a valuable lesson — in the playoffs, no lead is safe until the clock expires.
Last Friday at Aurora High, undefeated Cuyahoga Heights, the top seed in Division V Region 17, stunned the Irish and their followers by racing to a 28-14 lead.
“We weren’t really worried a lot,” senior tailback Allen Jones said after Redskins quarterback Zach D’Orazio (a University of Akron recruit), dominated the first two quarters.
“We’ve played adversity all year long with officials, games we didn’t finish,” Jones said. “We just came out focused on getting back into the game.
“Our first half was kind of sloppy but in the second half we picked it up,” Jones said.
And then some. The Irish (9-3) outscored the Redskins 33-0 in the second half, scoring five unanswered touchdowns for a 47-28 rout.
Ursuline’s reward is tonight’s state semifinal contest against another unbeaten team — West Lafayette Ridgewood. They’ll meet at Canton Central Catholic’s Lowell Klinefelter Stadium.
“They are a very good football team,” said Ursuline coach Dan Reardon of the Generals (13-0). “Obviously, you don’t get to this point unless you know how to win, how to do the little things well.”
In 2007, their first season in Div. V, the Irish lost to Maria Stein Marion Local, 20-14, in the championship game.
Last year, the Irish roared back to dominate and capped a 15-0 season with a 21-0 victory over Findlay Liberty-Benton for the school’s second state crown. The Irish won Div. IV in 2000.
Reardon doesn’t want his players looking ahead.
“They have a lot of good football players,” Reardon said of the Generals. “I was comparing their all-district team to ours. They had 11 kids mentioned whereas we only had 10.
“Obviously, they have a lot of talented football players.”
So do the Irish who are competing for their third straight state final appearance.
Stopping Jones will be the key for the Generals to have a chance. The Irish captain has rushed for 2,006 yards on 243 carries and scored 27 touchdowns in 12 games.
Reardon said the Generals’ Jake Conrad also has rushed for 2,000 yards in his 13 games.
“Conrad was their district player of the year,” Reardon said. “He’s very deserving of that honor.”
Irish running back Akise Teague has 434 yards on 52 carries and has scored three touchdowns. Quarterback Paul Kempe has completed 90 of his 165 passes for 1,621 yards and 13 scores. He’s been picked off eight times.
Kempe’s favorite targets are Teague (32 catches, 779 yards, five touchdowns) and Chris Collins (27 receptions, 428 yards, four scores).
“On defense,” said Reardon of the Generals, “they fly around and bring passion to their game. They are very good at the scheme that they run. Rarely, do you see anybody out of place.
“They are a very dangerous football team,” Reardon said. “If you look at the past two weeks, both games were very close games and they found ways to win them.
“Teams like that have all the intangibles. Certainly they show character in how they play and the leadership that their kids bring.”
Center David Rossi, a senior and only fulltime starter back from last year, said Ursuline’s 1-2 start gave them something to overcome early.
“We were a young team and we really just had to find our own identity,” Rossi said. “It took us a while.”
Rossi feels the team began to gel midway through the season.
“We knew from the beginning we had something special but we knew from the St. Thomas game that everything was starting to click,” Rossi said.
A 27-22 loss to Mooney in Week 9 energized the Irish for a long playoff run.
Jones said this regional title is the best for this year’s seniors.
“We didn’t want to go out on a bad note,” Jones said. “We all looked at each other in our eyes and said that we had [to play hard] or be remembered as a team that didn’t go far.”
williams@vindy.com
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