Defense and special teams. Coaches love the effective ones and sing their praises from August until they put the equipment away.
Stow coach Mark Nori might be singing pretty loudly today and the Bulldogs will keep the equipment out for at least one more week.
Sophomore Terrian Wray returned a kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown in the third quarter and the Stow defense set up a touchdown and a field goal and came up with what proved to be the two biggest plays of the game on Saturday.
It all added up to a 24-15 victory over Solon in the Division I regional semifinals in InfoCision Stadium in Akron.
The victory kept the Bulldogs undefeated and sends them to next weekend’s regional final against Lewis Center Olentangy at a neutral site to be determined Sunday. Olentangy is coached by former Twinsburg coach Mark Solis.
Solon, led by outstanding quarterback Johnny Mooney, cut the lead 17-15 with 6:31 to play on a pass of 5 yards from Mooney to Gil Barksdale. However, junior defensive back Joe Andrassy broke up a Mooney pass on a 2-point conversion attempt to preserve the lead.
After Stow was forced to punt, Mooney moved the Comets (9-3) to midfield where they forced a fourth-and-3 situation. Mooney attempted to get the ball to Jake McCurry near the Solon sideline, but senior Owen Fankhauser broke up the pass, giving the ball back to Stow with 3:20 left.
From there, the Bulldogs relied on the legs of tailback Jayson Gobble and quarterback Kyle Vantrease to put the game away with a seven-play, 53-yard scoring drive that ended with Gobble crashing in from the 1 with 26 seconds to go.
Mooney gave the Bulldogs (12-0) fits all night. He completed 17-of-30 passes for 139 yards and two touchdowns and rushed for 95 yards on 18 carries.
Gobble, who entered the game with 1,855 yards rushing, broke loose in the second half and finished with 157 yards on 29 attempts and scored twice. In addition to the game-clincher, he added a 29-yard dash that gave the Bulldogs their first lead at 10-6 following the point-after by Garrett Rigby.
An interception by Isaiah Gray set up a 24-yard field goal by Rigby in the second quarter and an interception by Monte Board early in the third quarter set up Gobble’s 29-yard scoring run.
Solon led 6-3 at the half on the strength of a 6-yard scoring pass in the first quarter from Mooney to Tim Harmody, who was forced out of the game in the second quarter after suffering a broken leg. The scoring play, which capped a 12-play, 89-yard drive that took almost six minutes, was kept alive when the Stow defense jumped offside on a fourth-and-3 play at the Solon 37.
Stow scored with two seconds remaining in the first half on Rigby’s 24-yard field goal.
Stow, the second-seeded team in the region behind Lakewood St. Edward, had a hard time sustaining any offense through the first 24 minutes. Solon, which held opponents to 16 points a game, limited the Bulldogs to 96 yards in the first half. Gobble was held to 65 yards on 16 carries with a long gain of 12 yards. Vantrease, who had completed 54 percent of his passes through 11 games, completed just 2-of-8 passes for 29 yards.
Wray, who opened the game with what appeared to be a 95-yard kickoff return for a touchdown only to have it nullified on a holding penalty, responded to a 42-yard field goal by David Sebuke that got the Comets to within 10-9. He took the ball near the left side, swung to his right and found a crease to the open field. He followed a block and cut to the Stow sideline and eluded his final tackler at about the 25-yard line.
Stow opened the game with promise, moving from its 30 to the 46 in four plays, but a Gobble pass on a halfback option was intercepted by McCurry at the Solon 32 and the Comets began the scoring drive that was helped by the offside penalty.