Galion had a good defense this season, but on Friday night they just ran into a team that they -and every other defense- were not suited to stop. A 42-7 loss to Triway brought their high school football season came to an end.
Parker Carmichael passed for 451 yards and six touchdowns as Wooster Triway flew past Galion (42-7) in a division four regional quarterfinal game played at Triway.
Carmichael is a possible Mr. Football for Ohio and he showed why on Friday night, but Galion coach Chris Hawkins says it surprised him that they weren’t able to score some too.
“I have to give them credit. I know their quarterback was good and I knew they could put some points up, but I was kind of surprised because I thought we would put some points up also and it would a shootout. They were faster and more physical than they looked on film,” said Hawkins.
Triway opened the scoring on Carmichael’s first TD pass, but Galion would come right back and tie the game on their next possession on a nice pass play from Jacob Fryar to Drake Barnett of 43 yards and after the extra point the game was knotted at 7 all.
It was only 14-7 Triway with just five seconds left until halftime when Carmichael hooked up with Troy Haven for a 30-yard touchdown pass. Hawkins says that was a killer.
“There was interference on a play that wasn’t called, we fumbled the snap and had to punt and gave then the ball with about 50 second to play. With about five seconds to play they scored and that was tough,” said Hawkins.
“You don’t say that won the game for them, but that was huge. Going into halftime down 14-7 to a team that can pile the point up like that is a big advantage,” he said.
Carmichael, who has now thrown 54 scoring passes on the season, connected for scores of 32, 77 and 95 yards in the second half of the game to put it out of reach.
Galion’s defense pitched three shutouts this season, but Hawkins says they were really designed to stop the run and not the prolific passing game like Triway’s offense. Sometimes, playoffs can come down to the luck of the draw and drawing an undefeated offense was not ideal.
“It’s about match-ups. I would like to have played anybody else other than them and Kenton because I thought our strength was shutting the run down. When you take those run stoppers and try to make them pass rushers that just is not their forte,” he said.
Galion ends the season at 6-5. Triway marches on at 11-0 will play Kenton 9-2 in the next round of the playoffs.
