Bluffton’s Griffin Stackhouse looks for room to run during Friday night’s game at Columbus Grove.
Jessica Trinko | The Lima News
COLUMBUS GROVE — Columbus Grove’s football team knew all about Bluffton’s streak of seven straight shutouts. The Bulldogs knew all about the Pirates’ top rusher leading the Northwest Conference. They heard about their opponent’s unbeaten record going into a pivotal season finale that would decide the Northwest Conference championship.
They just unleashed their inner Bulldogs to shift the narrative and claim the NWC crown with a 14-7 victory at Clymer Stadium.
“Nobody talked about us,” Columbus Grove coach Andy Schafer said. “So, you know, I think our defense, we just played angry. That’s the best way to put it. We had a chip on our shoulder. We wanted to prove who we were.”
The Bulldogs (8-2, 7-0 NWC) are league champs for the fifth time in the last six years, winning at home in front of a packed house whipped into a frenzy by the electric atmosphere Friday night.
Columbus Grove, which won its seventh game in a row, held the Pirates (9-1, 6-1 NWC) to 176 total yards, nearly 200 yards under their season average. The Bulldogs limited Landen Worcester, the top running back in the league, to 53 yards rushing, 85 yards below his average.
“Their defensive line did a great job, plugging up some things,” Bluffton coach Jeff Richards said. “We were able to get the jet sweep moving a little, but we weren’t able to do what we wanted to do on offense.”
Meanwhile, Columbus Grove’s offensive line and running back Trenton Barraza unleashed something late in the second half, as Barraza finished with two touchdowns and 198 yards rushing, including 160 in the second half.
“We’re Bulldogs. We just have the dog in us, especially the O-line,” Barraza said. “They’re tough every day.”
Barraza got on track just before halftime, getting 33 of his 53 yards at the break on the half’s final drive, including a pair of 15-yard scampers. On his 15-yard touchdown run with 52 seconds left in the half, he made a nice juke to score the first points against Bluffton’s vaunted defense since the second game of the year.
Bluffton knotted the score at 7-7 with 9:54 left to go in the fourth quarter, when some successful running plays set up the pass. A fake sweep run left Hayden Dearth wide open in the middle of the field, where quarterback Garret Bogart found him. He sprinted up the right sideline, tiptoeing along the sideline for the touchdown and the tie game.
Columbus Grove bounced right back with a nearly five-minute drive that included a fourth-and-11 from Bluffton’s 28 Receiver Zach Reynolds read the safety and moved to the center of the field to catch Landon Best’s pass, getting the first down and moving all the way to the 1. A play later, Barraza cashed in for his second TD of the game.
“This week we talked about trust,” said Reynolds, who had four catches for 57 yards. “We talked about our quarterback to just throw it out there, and we’ll make plays. That’s what we did.”
Schafer added, “We knew that we had to do something. It’s a big game. You know the story: Big players make big plays in big games. If you get the ball in Zach Reynolds’ hands, some special stuff’s going to happen.”
The teams could see each other again in the playoffs. Both will likely have home games next week and could face one another down the tournament trail. Playoff pairings will be announced Sunday.
“When you’re playing good teams, you don’t have a lot of room for error,” Richards said. “We didn’t quite get it done. The only silver lining is we may get to play again in a few weeks if we both take care of business.”
That’s a matchup Schafer wouldn’t mind seeing.
“I want the Northwest Conference to be as successful as they possibly can. So I hope Bluffton wins every game until we play again. Man, will that be a great atmosphere. So yeah, I wish them absolutely the best.”
Game summary
Bluffton Columbus Grove
8 First downs 17
176 Total yards 298
116 Rushing yards 242
60 Passing yardage 56
6-12-0 Passing 5-11-0
0-0 Fumbles-Lost 1-0
5-33 Punts 4-39
6-60 Penalties 8-60
Score by quarters:
Bluffton 0 0 0 7 — 7
Columbus Grove 7 0 0 7 — 14
Second quarter
CG-Trenton Barraza 15 run (Evan Verhoff kick), 0:52
Fourth quarter
B-Hayden Dearth 28 pass from Garret Bogart (Kyle Basil kick), 9:54 CG-Trenton Barraza 1 run (Evan Verhoff kick), 5:07
David Trinko wrote this story for LimaScores.com. Reach The Lima News sports department at 567-242-0451.
