By Doug Chapin

sports@vindy.com

NEWTON FALLS

Youngstown Christian put the finishing touch on the regular season portion of its first playoff season, riding two interception returns for touchdowns to a 20-7 victory over Newton Falls on Friday night on the Tigers’ muddy field.

But coach Brian Marrow insists the 9-1 regular season means nothing to his players.

“If you go in that locker room right now and ask our kids what have they done, they won’t even talk about 9-1 anything,” he said. “You say ‘What have you done?’ and they’ll say, ‘Nothing.’

“We keep telling them to focus on each game. Your next game is the biggest game, a championship game. We try to play every game like it’s a championship.”

The Eagles used a familiar formula against Newton Falls (2-8), a punishing ground game and an opportunistic defense. It didn’t hurt that the Tigers lost starting quarterback Matt Brazin to an injury late in the first quarter.

“This team over here [Newton Falls] has played nine teams this year already in the playoffs or still with a chance of making the playoffs,” Marrow said. “We stressed that to our kids and you have fans and other people telling the kids, ‘This team is 2-7, it’s an easy game.’ We knew we did not have an easy game. This team is really, really good. We got a break with their quarterback going out.”

The Tigers drove 69 yards on seven plays on the first possession of the game to take a 7-0 lead on Derek Walton’s 1-yard run. Newton Falls ended up gaining 92 yards from scrimmage in the first half, but finished with just 115 as the Youngstown Christian defense asserted itself.

“Our defense has been so phenomenal all year,” Marrow said. “We had two more returns for scores tonight. I know coming into the game we had 14 interceptions on the season and had three more tonight.”

Eagles quarterback Emmit Underwood was six-for-eight passing for 158 yards including an 80-yard scoring bomb on second-and-short to tie the game late in the first quarter.

Defensive back Devaun Adams raced 26 yards to the end zone after intercepting a Cody Dillon pass with 2:28 left in the first half to break the 7-7 tie. Defensive lineman Anthony Harris then picked off a screen pass from Dillon and ran 18 yards for a touchdown to close out the scoring at the 9:39 mark of the third quarter.

The YC running game, featuring the tandem of Anthony Abeid (75 yards) and Ryan Grier (41 yards) then closed out the Tigers, limiting Falls to just three offensive plays in the fourth quarter.

“To be honest I knew our team would do really well, it was just a matter of us jelling together,” Marrow said about the outlook for his team during the summer. “We had some guys who didn’t play last year, whether injured or academically ineligible. But with everyone back we knew we could have a special season.”

Now the Eagles get a chance to continue that progress, starting with the first playoff game in the school’s history.