photo by: Andrew Grimm

Steubenville’s CaJuan Bryant picks up a big gain Friday against Buckeye Valley

STEUBENVILLE — A happy last walk down the ramp, indeed.

In what will be its final home game of the season, Big Red got rolling midway through the first quarter and rolled to a 51-21 victory over Delaware Buckeye Valley Friday night at Harding Stadium to advance in the Division III, Region 11 playoffs.

The win is No. 3 seed Big Red’s eighth-straight and sets up a meeting with No. 2 seed Licking Valley in the regional semifinals next Friday night in Newark. The undefeated Panthers rallied with 23 fourth quarter points to beat Bloom Carroll, 31-24, in their playoff game Friday night.

“It was a great night,” Big Red head coach Reno Saccoccia said. “It’s a great way to close the stadium and a great thing to win the last one here for the seniors.”

After having a bye week in the opening round, Big Red got off to a bit of a slow start as the Barons struck first. From there, though, Steubenville took over, scoring the next 38 points on the way to the commanding victory, its second in as many years over Buckeye Valley in the postseason.

“We started out a little slow, I knew we would, but we got out of it quick,” Saccoccia said. “When you don’t play for 14 days, it’s tough, but it’s not an excuse.

“They came out with a good plan … our kids did a good job of adjusting. They run two different types of offenses, but we were able to get lined up to match what they were doing and that was the key to the whole thing. I’m proud of coaches for preparing the kids the way they did.”

It was the defense and special teams that got things going as Cole Bowers booted a 25-yard field goal to put Big Red on the board, then on the ensuing Buckeye Valley possession, James Turner (three sacks) forced a fumble and Landon Crosier scooped and scored to make it 10-7 Big Red, and they never trailed again.

The offense got rolling from there on the way to a 455-yard night.

Crosier capped the next Big Red drive with a one-yard plunge after Steubenville had converted a fourth down, then after a stop from the D, Colton Henderson went 46 yards to the 2 and Ca’Juan Bryant (13 carries for 94 yards) went the last 2 yards for his first of two TDs, making it 24-7 Steubenville at the half.

Bryant capped a long scoring drive to start the second half with a 6-yard TD run, then Charlie Abbott scored on a 4-yard TD run to make it 38-7.

Buckeye Valley scored on a long pass play on its next drive to stop the running clock, but Big Red answered to start it again. A Tajon Hython 6-yard scoring run set up by a 50-yard Santino Haney (11 of 14, 212 yards) pass to Jeremiah Hinton made it 45-14 after three.

The Barons again stopped the running clock with a score, but Big Red did the final scoring with a 1-yard plunge from backup QB Karson Simmons on the last play of the game.

All told, Big Red had 10 different ball carriers in racking up 243 yards on the ground and six different players hauled in a pass.

Defensively, Ephy Kelly and Ryan Bise each had a TFL and Travell Swift recovered a fumble to go with Turner’s forced fumble and Crosier’s defensive score.

“We try to get as many guys as we can involved,” Saccoccia said. “Our coaches did a really good job of getting a lot of guys involved tonight. We had a lot of guys making plays.”