OUTRIGHT DENIED: GlenOak scores on final play to shock McKinley
By Keno Sultan
C-Town Radio announcer and statistician
CANTON--One stop.
That is all what stood between the Canton McKinley Bulldogs and an outright Federal League title.
It's only fitting that on a Friday night on the 13th of this month would a game between two Canton high schools come down to one play on fourth down and three yards.
For GlenOak, it was not a terrible trick but a terrific treat. For McKinley, it was a horrific haunting.
Quarterback Adrion Burt engineered GlenOak's third and final possession of the second half and ended it with a jumpball pass for tight end Austin Morrison on the final play of regulation to propel GlenOak to a stunning 7-3 victory over the Bulldogs and in the process, not only denying them an outright league title but worse, sending them into the 134th contest against Massillon on the heels of a 7-2 record. For a second straight year the Bulldogs will share the title with Lake.
At press time, Massillon defeated Warren Harding 48-14 and for the third time in Nate Moore's nine years atop the Massillon progam will arrive into next Saturday's affair with a 9-0 record at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium staring hard at a third undefeated regular season and a chance to prolong McKinley's aches, chills and pains against a Tigers team that have left the Bulldogs emaciated and sickened the last seven years, especially a 3-0 mark in Benson Stadium.
For GlenOak, this is a signature win for head coach Scott Garcia, who returned to the Eagles sideline after a two-year break.
"We never die easy! Our kids just grind all year. We had some ups and downs through the season but our kids fought through it and eventually ran out the clock. I'm proud of them, they played great defense and got after them on both sides of the ball and it was an old school win," Garcia, a protege of former GlenOak and Massillon general Bob Commings said. "On the score, that was a play we had run earlier in the game. We had a situation we had to run it. To win it like that is phenomenal."
McKinley's only score came in the second quarter on a Keaton Rode 23-yard field goal. A penalty stopped them from scoring a touchdown and eventually changed the trajectory of the contest in what became a defensive slugfest between the two behemoths.
Gone was McKinley's six game winning streak along with their six game winning streak over the Eagles. It was pretty clear that these were not the same Eagles who were humiliated a combined 80-24 in two meetings last year.
The problems that have plagued the Bulldogs finally caught up to them much to the chagrin of head coach Antonio Hall. And it will not get any easier with Massillon arriving next Saturday and unarguably playing their best football to date.
And that left him frustrated.
"If it's 10, it would be 20," he said of the level he felt after the game. "We've been playing this kind of football the last two weeks and it caught up to us today. When you're on the field a long time most of the game, you wear down."
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