Zach Garber ran for 266 yards and two touchdowns and the defense allowed just 58 yards of total offense to lead the Buckeye Valley football team to a 27-13 MOAC win over host Marion Harding Friday night.
Quarterback Grant Owens found Andre Ash in the end zone from two yards out to give BV (4-4, 4-1) a lead it wouldn’t relinquish.
The TD made it 10-7 with 4:52 left in the first half. BV, which stayed alive in the race for a league title, added a 24-yard field goal — Felipe Scharff’s second of the half — to make it a 13-7 game at the break.
Garber ballooned the lead to 19-7 with a nine-yard run with 8:02 left in the third quarter and, after Harding (1-7, 0-5) got a little closer with a special-teams score, Garber reeled off a 48-yard TD run with 7:45 left in the fourth to all but end things.
Olentangy Orange 14, Westerville Central 10
Ethan Adkins returned a blocked field goal — a kick snuffed out by Zach Harrison — 80 yards to the house 14 seconds before halftime to help the Pioneers (5-3, 2-1) secure a key OCC win over the host Warhawks (4-4, 1-2) Friday in Westerville.
The scoop-and-score gave Orange a 7-3 lead at the break.
Central answered with a 63-yard TD run by Rickey Hyatt late in the third quarter, but Orange regained control with a five-yard touchdown run by Jake Vanchieri with 1:55 to go in the game.
The Pioneer defense took care of the rest, forcing a handful of turnovers, including picks by Mason Faulkner and Joey Guagenti, on the Warhawks’ final possessions.
Orange QB Robbie Dayhuff completed 11 of his 21 passes for 133 yards while Vanchieri rumbled for 90 yards on the ground. Zane Lattig was Dayhuff’s top target, finishing with three grabs covering 35 yards.
New Albany 41, Big Walnut 7
Big Walnut quarterback Jagger Barnett hit a wide open Nathan Montgomery for an 80-yard touchdown on the first play from scrimmage, but it was all New Albany the rest of the way as the hosts rolled to an OCC win Friday night.
New Albany (5-3, 2-1) got back to even early in the second quarter when Luke Muter found Alex Cox for a 30-yard TD. The score was the start of 41 unanswered points.
New Albany, thanks in large part to Michiah Burton’s 212 rushing yards and two touchdowns, outscored BW (4-4, 2-1) 27-0 in the second quarter and 14-0 in the third to smooth out the scoring summary. Cox also rushed for over 100 yards in the win.
Barnett completed four of his six passes for 94 yards and the touchdown while Tyler Crotinger led Big Walnut on the ground with 45 yards on 10 carries.
Dublin Scioto 38, Olentangy Berlin 20
The Bears fell into a 17-0 first-quarter hole they couldn’t climb out of en route to an OCC setback at the hands of the visiting Irish Friday in Delaware.
Berlin (1-7, 0-5) got on the board when Johnny Spinner powered into the end zone from nine yards out to make it a 17-6 game with 9:35 left in the second quarter.
The momentum didn’t stay on the Bears’ sideline for long, though, as Irish (6-2, 4-1) quarterback Kyron Rogers hit Kenyon Pannell for a 76-yard scoring strike to balloon the lead back to 17 with 5:40 left in the first half.
Spinner finished with 108 yards on 32 carries while Berlin quarterback Jacob Moeller completed 10 of his 20 passes for 94 yards and a couple scores — one an 11-yarder to Jalen Weitzel and the other a five-yarder to Weitzel.
