St. John's headed back to state final

WAPAKONETA - Enough about Delphos St. John's being a year away.

The Blue Jays are headed to the state championship.

Delphos St. John's quarterback Wes Ulm masterfully ran the option to lead the Blue Jays to a 32-13 victory over Sidney Lehman Catholic in the Division VI football state semifinals Friday at Harmon Field.

St. John's stuck to the formula that has served it well throughout the playoffs. The Blue Jays were able to run the ball when they wanted, they threw a little and were tough against the run.

"We're here and we're pretty excited about it," St. John's coach Todd Schulte said. "We've kind of played on that. Everybody said we weren't there yet and we weren't ready and here we are. I think we have a little something to prove."

Delphos St. John's (12-2) advances to the state championship game against Hopewell-Loudon (14-0) at 11 a.m. Friday at Massillon's Paul Brown Tiger Stadium. Sidney Lehman ends its season 11-2.

St. John's tailback Jordan Leininger ran for 98 yards on 22 carries. He had touchdown runs of 6, 4 and 2 yards. Fullback Matt Brinkman ran the trap off the option for 87 yards on nine carries.

"We thought they'd be keying on Jordan and I and Matt's one of the better athletes on our team and we worked on getting him the football," Ulm said.

Ulm, often looking like a magician running the option, ran for 44 yards and a 6-yard touchdown and completed 5-of-9 for 49 yards and a TD.

The Blue Jays led 26-0 at halftime behind the running of Leininger and Ulm. They also used two Lehman turnovers and converted both into scores.

Lehman came back in the third quarter and scored twice to cut the margin to 26-13.

Lehman was forced to go for it with 3:08 to play on a fourth-and-7 from its own 6. When the Blue Jays held, it took one play for St. John's to score. Ulm's 6-yard TD run sealed the win at 32-13 with 2:55 to play.

The third time the Blue Jays touched the ball they went 73 yards in 10 plays for the score. Leininger took the pitch off the option and went 6 yards for the score, diving his way into the end zone to make it 6-0.

St. John's made it 13-0 on a 14-yard TD pass from Ulm to tight end Nate Webb on a post pattern with 4:03 left in the first half.

Lehman Catholic quarterback Kameron Barton fumbled the snap and St. John's Dylan Dancer recovered at the Lehman 7. Two plays later, Leininger ran it over from the 4 to make it 19-0.

Barton went to the air the next time Lehman had the ball and he was picked off by the Blue Jays' Tyler Bergfeld. St. John's went 34 yards in six plays to make it 26-0 on Leininger's 2-yard run with 54 seconds left before the half.

"We ran a lot of option in the first half and they were really struggling," Schulte said. "That's the tough thing about the option. You decide who you are going to stop, and the way Wes runs the option, he reads it great. He's very patient with it."

After holding Sidney Lehman to 60 total yards in the first half, the Cavaliers began to run the ball to start the third quarter. Max Cartwright finished with 94 yards on 20 carries. Zac Schmitz ran for 50 yards on eight carries, while Kaleb Goins finished with 43 yards on 15 carries.

Lehman coach Richard Roll said, "We didn't make any adjustments. We just said let's go out and play''

Lehman finished with 242 total yards, with 187 on the ground.

"We had to try to stop their three-headed monster, with their three backs," St. John's defensive end Tyler Hayson said. "And I think we did that."

St. John's linebacker Chris Pohlman led the team with nine tackles. Linebacker Joel Pohlman had eight.

"Nobody expects us to be here," Hayson said. "There was an Internet post that had us 6-4 this year and we proved that wrong."