By John Bassetti

sports@vindy.com

BERLIN CENTER

Western Reserve’s football players had a raucous celebration in their lockerroom after beating McDonald, 13-9, Friday night to get a leg up in the race for the ITCL-Blue Tier crown.

Quarterback Wyatt Larimer had a hand in all the scoring for the Blue Devils (4-3, 2-0) as the 6-foot, 180-pound senior intercepted a pass that set up his 75-yard touchdown pass to Adam Gatrell, then, later, scored from a yard out for the go-ahead TD and kicked the extra point with 0:45 remaining.

Coach Andy Hake was running in circles greeting Western Reserve faithful after the game.

He also ran into fullback Austin Seifert and thanked him for his role in blocking for Jack Cappabianca, who gained 145 yards on 21 carries, including key runs during Reserve’s 94-yard march as the seconds ticked away near the end.

“He did some tremendous blocking tonight,” Hake said of Seifert, who lined up behind Larimer and in front of Cappabianca.

“We got in that I-formation and our line took over,” Hake said. “It’s just that our kids rose up. We’ve got a young team, but we grew up. We lost a couple games close but we learned from it. I know this is small-school football but these kids play as great as anybody and they play for this town [Berlin Center]. Look at this,” Hake said, pointing to swarming Reserve fans. “This is American, man. This is America first.”

Prior to Larimer’s plunge, Reserve stopped McDonald at Reserve’s 6-yard line.

Hake called his quarterback a hall of famer, partially for his role Friday night that put the home team in front early, 6-0, before Mike Zarbaugh’s 1-yard TD run and Joe Sudol’s PAT put McDonald on top, 7-6, just 51 seconds later.

Interspersed were pass break-ups and tackles by Larimer on defense.

“He’s our leader and he’s a great player,” Hake gushed.

“We’ve turned the tide,” Hake said of having beaten McDonald five of the last six years after McDonald beat Reserve 23 games in a row. “It’s not a coach, it’s a movement.”

Cappabianca’s role was very instrumental.

“I wanted to do everything I could for the win, so I tried my hardest out there,” said the 6-2, 210 junior, who was middle linebacker on defense. “We knew that if we win this game we’d have a good chance of going back into the playoffs. We came into this week knowing that we had to win.”

Lineman Cody Hilles had a big game for the winners, too.

McDonald coach Dan Williams spoke of his team coming up short when it was within 6 yards of the end zone late.

“We didn’t punch it in,” Williams said of getting to the 6 before Reserve held. “We had a big opportunity and tried to score at that point, but didn’t. We played great defense until that point. For three quarters, we held them to less than 100 total yards offense. Then they did a good job and we didn’t have an answer for it.

“Who would have expected a low-scoring game like it was?” Williams asked, noting that Reserve was averaging 34-plus points per game. “But you’ve got to punch it in when you have those opportunities.”

Reserve won the total offense battle with 310 yards on 50 plays to McDonald’s 270 on 52.