By charles Grove

cgrove@vindy.com

Tonight will showcase a matchup of two undefeated teams who played each other last year to within a field goal when South Range travels to Lisbon.

The Raiders (4-0) sit in fifth place in the Region 17 standings while Lisbon is sitting pretty in second in the Region 21 standings and a win tonight for either team will further help solidify one team’s footing in the top eight spots.

Last year the Blue Devils pulled off the victory with a 10-7 thriller, beating South Range for the first time since the teams resumed playing each other on a regular basis in 2006. The Raiders had beaten the Blue Devils by an average score of 45-8 the previous nine seasons but the game is no longer the annual beatdown it had been for a number of recent years.

“It was tense,” Lisbon head coach Jim Tsilimos said of last year’s victory. “We got up 10-0 at halftime and then they scored and then we got a fumble on the six yard line to end the game. They’re a solid group and we’ve got our hands full [tonight].”

When asked for his memories on the matchup, South Range head coach Dan Yeagley remembers the strong Lisbon teams from the mid 1990s that gave him a baptism by fire in his first game as head coach of the Raiders.

“We had [Lisbon] Week 1 in 1995 when they won the state title,” Yeagley said. “They came to our place and it was the best they’ve ever been. It was a rude awakening and I’m thinking to myself ,‘What am I doing here?’”

But the Raiders came from behind to beat Lisbon in 1996 in a contest Yeagley believes his team could take a lesson from.

“We were down at halftime [in 1996] and the kids said ‘Don’t worry coach, we have this game.’ Even though we were losing that was the difference. We went 10-0 that year and it was a huge win for our kids.”

This year the teams couldn’t be flying any higher after four weeks. The two squads have outscored their opponents by 209 combined points. But one of the two will be flying even higher after tonight.

“I think it’s a little more exciting [preparing] this week,” South Range lineman Chris Herubin said. “We have a perfect season going and we want to do our best to keep it a perfect season.”

South Range linebacker Taymer Graham said his defense, which has limited opponents to 12.75 points per game, is playing with a lot of confidence.

“We’ve just got some bad dudes on defense,” Graham said. “We take defense very seriously and we hate it when other teams score. It bothers us a lot.”

Tsilimos has been careful not to build his team up too much for tonight’s game, making it clear to his Blue Devils his team would still be in terrific shape even with a defeat.

“This game isn’t going to define our season no matter what happens because 72 hours later on Monday we’ve got to prepare for the next game,” Tsilimos said.

“If we win that’s a feather in out cap, if we stumble we have to move on but 4-1 is not bad for either team.”

This year’s conference slate of games has a different meaning for South Range this year. The ITCL is disbanding and the Raiders are losing a conference that has had a number of familiar opponents and will be independent in 2017 before moving into the Eastern Buckeye League in 2018.

The EBL will feature some much bigger schools like Marlington, Alliance, Canton South, West Branch and Minerva and the Raiders would like to take that final ITCL trophy and ride off into the sunset and go their own way.

“We would like to win that last title,” Yeagley said. “We know it’ll be a tough battle but that’s a goal of ours. When the ICL merged with the TCL our goal was to win that last ITCL title so we’ve been using the same strategy as then.”

Graham said he would like to win that final ITCL title for his fellow seniors and tonight will be a big first step in achieving that.

“It would mean a lot to me and the seniors because it’s family,” Graham said. “It would mean a lot to our family.”