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Ohio 2024: Week 4


OdbCle

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Not the best week for the Buckeye state as two of the top ranked teams go down in OOS matchups, Massillon to Bergen Catholic (NJ) and St. Edward to Boyle County (KY). Massillon was a long shot to beat BC to begin with, but the eye-opener was Ed's taking one on the chin at home to a relatively unknown, albeit accomplished, small-school Bluegrass powerhouse. Both teams should rebound from this and are still on the short list of championship contenders.  Elsewhere, TCC's 33-game winning streak was snapped by Detroit Catholic Central and  Princeton pulled off a minor upset over Lakota West. 

Week 4 Power Poll: 

1. Moeller (previously #4, beat East Central (IN) 42-13) - The Crusaders find themselves in the top spot this week kind of by default, but they may in fact be the top dog when all is said and done. They have a special QB in Matt Ponatoski who has the offense humming and a solid defense featuring some FBS commits. They haven't been challenged much to date, but the dominating Princeton win in week one is certainly looking better. They were set to take on Benedictine (GA) this week in the Ironton Classic but, for whatever reason, will now be playing Mallard Creek (NC). Ohio could use a win here.  9/14 v. Mallard Creek (NC) @ Ironton Gridiron Classic.  

2. St. Edward (previously #1, lost to Boyle County (KY) 38-21) - No need to get into detail here on the loss as it has been discussed thoroughly in other threads. Bottom line, this is still a good football team but is also a work in progress and the hype after the SJP game was clearly premature. But as they say, it's now how you start it's how you finish. The schedule is still riddled with marquee in-state games that will tell us if the Boyle game was a one-off.  They will play host to a 3-0 Elder team this week which presents as many offensive looks and formations as Boyle does. Unlike Boyle though, they don't have a Montavin Quisenberry at their disposal. Still, Ed's needs to find a way to get off the field on 3rd downs and not get dinked and dunked down the field all game. 9/14 v. Elder. 

3. Massillon (previously #2, lost to Bergen Catholic 35-21) - I did not expect Massillon to beat BC so I'm not going to knock them down too much right now. However, this does not appear the be a Massillon team on par with last year's group despite the number of playmakers they brought back on offense. The defense is certainly not as good. Hoban and Avon are right there with them in DII, and you could probably swap out either of them in this spot. I want to see how Massillon responds this week against Canisius (NY). Canisius just knocked off a solid Benedictine team, but if Massillon is who we expect them to be, they should handle this team.  9/13 v. Canisius (NY).  

4. Hoban (previously #5, beat Akron Buchtel 56-0) - A dominating win over an Akron city league team tells us nothing, but loss to Spalding keeps looking better. Hoban is still probably the most talented team across the board on paper in the state. They should dominate their next three opponents (although Ignatius could put up a fight) before facing a Walsh team that looks like it could have a say in the DII championship talks. 9/13 @ Akron East.

5. Avon (previously #4, beat Glenville 13-12) - For the second week in a row Avon had trouble dealing with an athletic team. If Glenville's offense wasn't so inept at the moment, they probably beat Avon. For that reason I had to drop them below Hoban which I think is an athletically superior team. 9/13 v. Elyria. 

6. Winton Woods (previously #8, beat Milford 22-3) - Still don't know if this team can muster enough offensively to win R4, but man are they lights out on defense. They will have plenty of time over the next 6 weeks to try and get the offense together for the playoffs. Looking at the remaining schedule, only Anderson could spoil an undefeated regular season. 9/13 @ Turpin. 

7. TCC (previously #6, lost to Detroit Catholic Central 21-7) - TCC's 33-game wining streak was snapped on the road up in Detroit, and they could not find much offense after their starting QB went down with an injury. For that reason, I only dropped them a spot for now. 9/13 v. Brother Rice (MI). 

8. St. X (previously #9, beat Indy Cathedral (IN) 35-31 ) - Not what you want to see from an X defense that was looking pretty stout the first few weeks, but still a solid win over a perennially strong Cathedral team. 9/13 v. Withrow. 

9. Olentangy Liberty (previously #10, beat Gahanna-Lincoln 31-0) - Complete domination of a GL team that some believed to be the class of Columbus going into the year. However, GL is now 1-2 and is struggling on offense, so it's difficult to tell how good this win was. The OL defense has held its first three opponents to a total of 13 points, pitching two shutouts. This might be way too low a ranking for them, but I can never seem to get a good grip on Columbus. 9/13 @ Olentangy Berlin. 

10. Princeton (previously unranked, beat Lakota West 14-6) - Big win for the Vikings over LW after their hype train derailed in week one with a humbling loss to Moeller. The GMC looks mediocre overall and this win may have decided the conference champ as both teams are favored to win out their remaining schedules. 

Others: Lakota West, Pick North, Mentor, Walsh Jesuit, Elder, VASJ, Glenville, LaSalle, Anderson, Wadsworth 

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11 hours ago, NYHSFAN33 said:

Good write up as always - if I’m not mistaken though I believe it was St Francis NY who beat Benedictine OH and Canisius NY defeated Scranton Prep PA

Yes, you are correct. Can you share anything on Canisius this year? 

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3 minutes ago, OdbCle said:

Yes, you are correct. Can you share anything on Canisius this year? 

I cannot - I live far away from Buffalo / Rochester area, in the suburbs of NYC.  I do know that St Francis has won their local Catholic league over Canisius the past few seasons and has lost to the NYC/Westchester champion each season.  I think they always have decent participation numbers but only seem to be a threat when they have a couple high level D-1 talents, which I don’t think they have much of this year, could be proven wrong on that though.  I would expect them to get beat fairly handily by a team like Massillon, but ya never know. 

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Friday finals:

Massillon 41, Canisius (NY) 7

Hoban 42, East 6

Avon 58, Elyria 0

Winton Woods 31, Turpin 0

TCC 37, Brother Rice (MI) 0

St. X 31, Withrow 7

Olentangy Berlin 22, Olentangy Liberty 21

Princeton 17, Lakota East 16

Lakota West 50, Fairfield 14

Mentor 49, Medina 14

Pick North 43, Dublin Coffman 27

Walsh Jesuit 42, Ignatius 7

VASJ 53, Kenston 35

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BTW, it’s nice to see Lake Catholic playing really well so far this year.  Three blowout wins, and through four games, they have three shutouts and have only given up 7 points all year.  Would be nice to see them back among the elite small schools.

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