By Ryan Buck

sports@vindy.com

NEW MIDDLETOWN

Longshot playoff hopes took a back seat to more important matters Friday night for Division VI bubble team South Range.

The Raiders set their sights on Inter Tri-County League rival Springfield and a piece of the conference crown, which the Tigers had already claimed.

South Range scored on its first three possessions and rode the big plays of Joe Alessi, Ryan Miller and an opportunistic defense to a convincing 43-20 victory.

Alessi, a senior, rushed for three touchdowns and 244 yards while Miller connected with receiver Greg Dunham for two more scores.

“I can’t say enough about my team,” said Miller, playing in his last high school game. “We’ve been through so much this year. That’s high school football right there at its best.”

On the Raiders’ third play from scrimmage, Alessi bounced to the left and outraced the Tigers’ secondary for a 65-yard touchdown. On the first play of their next drive, Miller faked a handoff to Alessi and hit a wide-open Dunham for a 78-yard score.

“Our mindset was to come in here and take the wind out of them,” Miller said of a Springfield team coming off three straight wins. “Put some points up, make a couple stops, then grind it out and that’s what we did.”

Raiders defensive back Taymer Graham dropped Springfield all-purpose threat Ryan Kohler in the backfield on two consecutive plays to kill the Tigers’ next drive.

Alessi then drove his team to the Tigers’ 16 yard-line, before Miller play-faked again and hit Dunham over the middle for a 21-0 lead.

“When you have Joe in the backfield everyone has to be worried,” Miller said. “They were biting up a bit. The right play calls at the right time.”

Kohler responded with a nine-play drive of his own, diving into the end zone from the 3 with 5:49 to play in the second quarter. The Tigers appeared to have another scoring chance to end the half before losing a fumble on the Springfield 12 on the first play of their next drive.

Alessi scored three plays later and hopes for a comeback faded.

“We had a couple turnovers that killed us and we hadn’t been turning the ball over,” said Springfield coach Sean Guerriero. “That’s stuff you can’t do in this type of game.”

On their opening second-half drive, quarterback Graham Mincher saw the ball slip out of his hand leading to a Ray Janecko interception. Alessi and David McCabe runs preceded a 2-yard TD run from Miller that put the game out of reach.

A triumph over an archrival and a conference crown are fine consolation prizes for a team whose season was once in jeopardy after it was found the Raiders (7-3, 5-2) used an ineligible player and had to forfeuit a Week 6 win over East Palestine.

“They showed tremenous character,” South Range coach Dan Yeagley said. “Right there is the character of the kids. They became closer as a team after that happened than they were before and we played our best ball afterwards.”

Springfield would have clinched a playoff spot with a win, but projections late Friday had the Tigers qualifying anyway. Despite the victory, it appears South Range will not make the playoffs.