Long passes burn Irish in defeat

By Greg Gulas

sports@vindy.com

WARREN

Mahoning Valley football teams have enjoyed their share of success recently against the Massillon Tigers.

Saturday told another story.

Still smarting after last week’s 41-28 home defeat to Warren Harding, the Tigers traveled to the Raiders’ home field at Mollenkopf Stadium in order to return the favor against Ursuline.

Seth Blankenship threw for 230 yards and four touchdowns while Austin Jasinski caught six passes and added two scores as Massillon defeated Ursuline, 30-0 in a rare afternoon game for both teams.

“I thought that we played really well overall, except for two long passes,” Ursuline head coach Larry Kempe said. “Despite trailing 7-0 at the half, I still felt good about our chances.

“We came out and just played too inconsistent in the second half,” Kempe said. “They were able to get the momentum and then rolled.”

On their opening drive of the game, Ursuline (2-2) drove to the Massillon 32 only to have the Tigers (2-2) take over on downs when Fighting Irish signal-caller Jared Fabry’s pass fell incomplete.

After the Tigers’ Nate Gregg missed a 31-yard field goal attempt on their initial possession, Ursuline had a 15-play drive stall at the Massillon 30.

On their third possession, the Irish drove to the Tigers 17 only to be forced off the field when Massillon held them for a second time on downs.

Blankenship then engineered a five-play, 84-yard drive, capping it off with a 66-yard strike to Jasinksi at the 5:45 mark of the second quarter for a 7-0 lead.

“We really needed this win today,” Massillon head coach Nate Moore said. “Our goal is to just get better each and every week and today our staff made some excellent play calls that put us in a good position to score.

“This was a team win and the result of an overall team effort.”

A 16-point third period by the Tigers included Gregg’s 27-yard field goal.

The Tigers had scoring strikes from Blankenship to Marcus Perrin (37 yards) and Austin Kuscher (12 yards) in the third quarter to open up a 23-0 lead.

Thunder and lightning created a 39-minute delay at the end of the third quarter.

“After playing what I felt was a good first half, I really didn’t like our body language in the second half,” Kempe said. “Also, we didn’t take advantage of our hits in the backfield.

“They were able to take advantage of their height, which was something that we were concerned with coming into the game.”

Blankenship’s 20-yard scoring strike to Jasinski 45 seconds into the fourth quarter concluded the scoring.

Massillon ran 65 plays and racked up 396 yards offensively while the Tigers’ defense held Ursuline to 143 total yards — 69 on the ground and 74 through the air — on 43 plays.

Massillon’s Marcus Perrin and Austin Kuscher each caught scoring passes while Joe Floyd led the Fighting Irish with 41 yards on 16 carries.

Massillon is 5-3 in their series with Ursuline and have beaten the Fighting Irish the last two times out. Saturday’s win, however, was their first against Ursuline on the road.