ONTARIO – It didn’t take long for snow to cascade onto Copeland Field on Friday night.
The first sign of winter was the last sign of the football season for St. Marys Memorial as Ontario stormed to a 38-21 win in a Division III Sweet 16 encounter.
Sixth-seeded St. Marys (9-4) struggled to adjust its gameplan to both Ontario’s defense and the weather.
Chief among those dooming the Roughriders was Warriors’ junior wrecking ball Max Ciroli.
“The dude’s a stud. He’s been a stud for us all year,” said Ontario oach Aaron Eckert. “We planned on having a three- or four-headed monster back there (but we struggled with injuries). He had to pick up the workload.
“He’s the lead rusher in the conference for a reason. He’s a big, physical kid.”
The 5-foot-11, 190-pounder started with just four yards on his first two carries, but sandwiched between that was a 72-yard reception to set up the first score. Junior quarterback Sean Tanner notched a 5-yard touchdown blast and the Warriors were off and running.
Ciroli finished with 227 scrimmage yards, including that 72-yard reception.
“Max Ciroli is great,” Tanner said. “He’s always been great.”
Tanner triggered the next score, connecting with Jermel Powell on a 93-yard touchdown pass for a 14-0 bulge. It was 17-0 at halftime as Ontario’s defense kept the Roughriders scoreless by forcing them to turn it over on downs on back-to-back possessions.
“You have to play assignment football,” Eckert said. “It’s almost like old-school option in a way; you have to do your job. But when all 11 guys do their job, as we did in the first half, things went really well for the Warriors.”
St. Marys came into the night with its best rushing attack since 2018, spearheaded by a stacked backfield. Indeed, three running backs scored in the second half: sophomore Tyler Holsinger, senior Tre Moore and junior Jace Rhodes. A strong performance by senior running back Dyllan Finks complimented that attack.
However, the Roughriders weren’t built to overcome big deficits. For instance, junior quarterback Logan Payton completed just 2-of-7 passing, for 23 yards and an interception.
“In the second half, we got out of sorts a little bit, and then they got some big plays on us, but we were able to hold on because offensively we did a great job with those big boys up front,” Eckert said.
Ontario gave up its first touchdown on St. Marys first second-half possession. It didn’t take long at all to answer, though.
An 11-second drive later, and Tanner was streaking 66 yards into the end zone to put Ontario up 24-7.
Again the Roughriders took off on a long, time-consuming march to climb within 24-14 as the third period ended.
But the Warriors responded as the fourth quarter began, working their way into the red zone where Ciroli punched in the score.
St. Mary managed one more TD, but they were working against both Ontario’s lead and the ticking clock.
The Warriors advance to the Region 10 finals next week against fourth-seeded Wapakoneta, a 28-7 upsest winner over No. 1-seed Celina.
(Photos by Tom Theodore)
