Team

Columbiana

Record	Div.	Conf.
6/4	Div. VI	Eastern Ohio Athletic Conference

By ERIC FORTUNE

sports@vindy.com

COLUMBIANA

The best way to stop an offense averaging 42.4 points a game — keep it on the sideline.

Cuyahoga Heights did that enough to get by the Columbiana Clippers 28-21 in a Division VI regional quarterfinal.

“The best defense in the world is when you can keep Mitch Davidson on the sideline and keep this offense on the sideline,” Columbiana coach Bob Spaite said. “We threw everything we could at them. We were blitzing, changing fronts, everything we could do.

“Until the very end, they didn’t turn the ball over. We knew we were going to have to stop them and get a turnover. We just couldn’t. We could slow them down, but we just couldn’t get the ball back off of them. It’s just the way it is.”

It seemed though the Clippers (9-2) were poised to trade scores with the Redskins (9-2) after they took an early 7-0 lead on Lucas D’Orazio’s 3-yard run at the 7:04 mark.

He led the Redskins with 134 yards rushing on 31 carries.

Instead, after Davidson marched the Clippers from their 35 deep in Redskins, their drive stalled when Dalton Miller dropped a pass in the red zone.

“That hurt a little bit,” Spaite said. “We knew we needed to score. Every possession was precious. Every possession was so precious to us. We shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times, but we made some plays, some fantastic plays.”

The Redskins ran 33 plays in the first half and held the ball for over 15 minutes as they held a 14-0 lead at the half.

The Clippers twice cut Cuyahoga Heights’ advantage in half — 14-7 and 21-14 — only to see the Redskins respond with time-consuming drives.

The backbreaker was after the Clippers made it 21-14 with 11 minutes in regulation when Davidson hit Jake Ward on a 20-yard TD pass.

Cuyahoga Heights took over at its 35, converted two fourth downs and took 7:57 off the clock when D’Orazio scored his third touchdown of the game on a 4-yard run with 2:58 to play.

“It was a struggle all night to keep them under three yards,” Spaite said.

The Clippers made it interesting again when Ward lateralled the ball to Miller, who took it 46 yards to make it 28-21 with 42 seconds left.

Davidson — spectacular all season — was again with with 209 passing yards and 113 more on the ground.

The Clippers, though, couldn’t recover an onside kick and the Redskins ran out the clock.

“I do believe and these guys believe,” Spaite said. “We just ran out of time. We really did. We battled our butts off. This team hasn’t quit all year. We’ve come back three times this year, but this time we just ran out of time. That’s all it was. That is how I’ll remember these guys. They never got beat and just ran out of time.”