Tigers' season comes to end at state semis

“There were really no weaknesses,” LC coach Casey Mohler said of the Raiders’ defense. “They just had 11 guys and I think they brought in guys off the sideline that filled in just as well. We couldn’t really find a weakness to exploit. We got some stuff going there in the second half, but again, we made some mistakes and kind of stubbed our toe.

“They get 11 guys to the ball, and wherever it is, they kind of funnel everything back into their pursuit. They’re just tough to run on. … We got behind the eight ball and from there it was just kind of downhill.”

Liberty Center, which was playing in its second state semifinal in the past five years, suffered its first blemish of the year and finished the season at 14-1 overall.

South Range improved to 15-0 overall and will play Ironton, a 35-21 winner over Valley View on Friday, for a state championship at 10:30 a.m. Friday at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton.

Liberty Center punted on each its first three drives, turned the ball over on downs on the next possession and finished the first half with an incomplete drive.

The Tigers finished with six first downs and only six plays of more than 10 yards.

LC’s most explosive play was a 34-yard pass from Zane Zeiter to Trent Kruse over the middle of the field, but the drive ended with a turnover on downs.

“A lot of times we were trying to take angles to get to linebackers and they beat us to the point of attack,” Mohler said. “And they’re good up front. They play with great fundamentals, they’re good athletes and then in the back end they can matchup and run with anybody. We moved the ball a little bit at times, we just couldn’t sustain anything.”

The Tigers finished with 173 yards of offense, while allowing 382 yards to a dynamic South Range offense.

The Raiders appeared to score quickly on the first drive of the game, but the scoring play was called back due to a holding penalty and they eventually missed a field goal attempt.

South Range kept the pressure on LC, though, scoring in six plays on its second drive with quarterback Billy Skripac finding 6-foot-3 receiver Ayden Leon for a 51-yard TD.

The Raiders pushed their lead to 14-0 on the first play of their next drive, as Skripac connected with big-play receiver Shane Lindstrom, who scored from 41 yards out on a quick pass. Skripac ran in a one-yard TD to cap a three-play drive to take a 21-0 lead into halftime.

“We knew they were going to be a good team. You don’t get here by not being good. We had some tough matchups that obviously hurt us,” Mohler said. “I thought we did a good job stopping their run game, got a little pressure to the quarterback, but we had a tough time matching up with their receivers.”

South Range scored again on its first drive of the second half, finishing a 14-play drive with a six-yard TD pass from Skripac to Leon on a slant, and added another one-play-drive TD in the fourth quarter on a 53-yard pass from Skripac to Leon.

Skripac racked up 329 yards and four passing TDs on a 15-of-20 effort to lead South Range, with Leon and Lindstrom combining for all 15 catches. The Raiders totaled just 59 yards rushing on 30 attempts.

Zeiter completed 8 of 20 passes for 105 yards, while Colton Kruse and Matthew Orr tallied 36 and 24 yards, respectively, on the ground for LC.

Despite the loss, Liberty Center put together one of the best seasons in program history.

The Tigers, who bowed out of the tournament in the regional final a season ago, won 14 consecutive games, earned league and regional championships and made it to state for the third time this century.

“We had a heck of a run and it definitely helped because we had the underclassmen there by our sides,” said LC senior and Northwest Ohio Athletic League defensive player of the year Own Box. “They knew that this senior class wanted it bad and that we had worked really hard for this. … I knew, for a fact, that once we got to our senior year this was going to be a hell of a team to play with. We were going to be hard to stop, but we ran into a good team tonight.”

“We came in picked second in our league,” said Mohler. “We won a league title, we won a regional title in what was a very, very difficult region. We came out here and we competed as hard as we could. I think our community should be proud of these guys, and especially our seniors.”

Not only did the Tigers make it to the final four, but they did so in a different division than last year. Due to realignment in the OHSAA football divisions, LC moved from D-VI to D-V, immersed in a region with as much talent as any division in the state.

“They put a ton of work in and they really gelled and came together. And they truly were a team,” said Mohler. “Going from Division VI last year into Division V was a big jump and I thought our kids went to toe to toe with as good of teams as you can go against and tonight just wasn’t our night.”

“(Assistant coach) Ryan Miller, the second semester of our junior year, we started a leadership class. His class was to show us how to become proper leaders and how to lead a team properly, and it definitely made this team special. … Everybody on this team loves each other,” said Box. “We’re not fighting ever and we’re having team bonding in the offseason when nobody else is. We don’t have to do that, the coaches didn’t force that, that was our idea and everybody hopped on board because we knew that we needed a team atmosphere if we wanted to make a deep run like this.”

The season may have ended a week earlier than the Tigers had hoped, but their season was one for the record books in a program that has plenty to boast.