MANSFIELD — Mansfield Senior isn’t just playing championship defense.
The Tygers are defending at a historic level.
Fifth-seeded Senior High (10-2) will head for Brunswick’s Auto Mart Stadium on Friday for a Division III, Region 10 semifinal showdown against top-seeded Holy Name (9-2) thanks largely to its stingy defense. The Tygers haven’t been scored upon in two playoff games.
“We say it all the time: Tyger defense is the flagship of Richland County,” coach Chioke Bradley said. “I don’t think you can drive to see a better defense than what we have here, especially this year.”
Just how good has Senior High’s defense been in the postseason?
In a tournament-opening 38-0 win over Ontario, the Tygers gave up just 72 total yards. Senior High forced five turnovers and allowed just five first downs.
In last week’s 16-0 win over Defiance in the regional quarterfinals, Mansfield Senior surrendered just 174 total yards — 126 of which came on two pass plays. The Bulldogs managed just 23 rushing yards on 31 attempts and quarterback Brez Zipfel was sacked six times.
Through 12 games, Mansfield Senior is allowing just 12.7 points and 198.4 yards a game. The 12.7 points allowed are the fewest allowed since the state runner-up 2019 team surrendered 11 points a contest. At 198.4 yards per game, the 2022 Tygers boast the best total defense in Bradley’s 13 seasons in charge.
Since 2000, only the 2019 team and coach Stan Jefferson’s 2001 squad had better scoring defenses. The ’01 team, which featured linebacker and first-team All-Ohioan Brian White and two-way lineman and second-team All-Ohioan Mike Donaldson, set the standard for scoring defenses, allowing just 8.5 points a game.
In terms of total defense, the 2022 Tygers are allowing about 10 fewer yards per game than the 2019 team. That group, led by hard-hitting safety Angelo Grose, surrendered 208.9 yards a game.
Like the 2019 team, the 2022 Tygers have game-changers at every level of the defense. Versatile senior defensive tackle Ricky Mills had 3.5 sacks in the win over Defiance and leads the team with 26.5 tackles for loss among his 84 stops. Senior linebacker Mekhi Bradley was in the rotation on the defensive line as a freshman during Senior High’s run to the state championship game. Junior cornerback Amarr Davis has four interceptions in the playoffs and nine on the season.
“We can go as far as we want to go. We’ve just got to believe in ourselves and the coaching,” Mills said after last week’s win over Defiance. “The coaches put a good game plan in place for us.”
The 5-foot-11, 220-pound Mills is listed as a linebacker on the roster. Defensive coordinator Sean Adams and Bradley line him up all over the field.
“We do a good job of moving him around and getting him lined up on (the opposing team’s) weaknesses,” Bradley said. “We get Ricky where we need him to be and then Ricky does the rest with his God-given abilities.
“We do a pretty decent job of dissecting the opposing team’s offense. We find different ways to attack you and if we see a weakness, we go after it.”
Senior High’s secondary has 16 interceptions this fall. Davis, who moved to cornerback from safety midway through the season, has two interceptions in each playoff game.
“The defensive line is doing their thing, the linebackers are doing their thing,” Davis said, “and the defensive backs, we’re doing our thing.”
The defense will be tested Friday in Brunswick. Holy Name averages 29.8 points a game and is led by dual-threat quarterback Jayvon Williams. The senior rushed for 62 yards on 19 carries and tossed a 1 yard touchdown pass to Andrew Cole as the Green Wave overcame a 10-point halftime deficit in last week’s 20-10 win over Lutheran West. For the season, Williams has thrown for 781 yards and 10 touchdowns and rushed for 755 yards and eight TDs.
Running back Kriztion Sanchez, a 5-foot-11, 225-pound hammer, rumbled for 82 yards on 17 carries last week. Sanchez has run for 867 yards and 12 scores.
Senior High and Holy Name met in the regional semifinals at Wooster’s Follis Field in 2019. The Tygers won 45-30 thanks to a defense that forced a pair of first-quarter turnovers — Clay Caudill recovered a fumble on Holy Name’s second play from scrimmage and Terrance Flickinger intercepted a pass later in the period.
Bradley and the Tygers are hoping for a repeat performance.
“It’s just wonderful to watch our guys go out and play Tyger football,” Bradley said. “What a thing of beauty.”
