BOARDMAN, Ohio (WKBN) – South Range and Poland will meet for the second time this season on the WKBN Game of the Week, this time for the Division V Region 17 Championship.
The Raiders set this up after a dominating 42-14 win over Garaway that included four total touchdowns from starting quarterback Tristan Toy.
“These are special times for our community, for our players,” South Range head coach David Rach said. “I know it’s a special time for Poland and their community and their players as well.”
While Poland made the rematch official with a 24-13 win over Manchester, a game where they outscored the Panthers 24-6 in the final three quarters of play.
“It’s neat that one of us is going to be going to the state final four,” Pavlansky said. “I think it’s a great example of what football is all about in the Mahoning Valley.”
We’re treated to an all-local regional championship on the line, between two schools that know each other well.
“It’s our seniors’ last go around, as you know, and we do everything we can to make it next week,” Poland senior Oliver McCully said.
“We know the seniors before us, and what a great great a job they did so we just want to take on that kind of contribution and we just don’t want this to be our last game,” South Range senior Gaven Nagy said.
Back in late September, the Raiders took down Poland 38-30, on their way to a 13-0 mark headed into another Week 14.
“It’s nice to say we played against them but that result means nothing right now,” Rach said. “So are our kids are preparing hard, our staff preparing hard to go out and try to win a championship game, it feels like it’s been like that for a lot of weeks in a row.”
South Range fell behind 14-0 in that home game before rattling off 28 straight points to take control of the game in the 8 point victory.
“Definitely don’t look past them, even though we won the first time they’re a great program,” Nagy said. “And it’s right in Boardman so both fanbases are going to be crazy.”
Since then, the Bulldogs have rattled off 7 consecutive wins to set up a rematch with a conference foe and will need to continue the stellar play against a Raiders program that has won 24 of its last 25 games.
“Again in our conference, nobody’s figured [South Range] out yet and now we have an opportunity on Friday and we’ll see what happens,” Pavlansky said. “We have to play really, really well just to hopefully get to the fourth quarter and you know, and we’ll see what happens.”
But the Bulldogs have numbers on their side as well, registering the first back-to-back 10-win seasons for the program in more than a decade.
“We’ve been down a couple of years, we’ve been cut short a couple of years we feel like and to finally make a deep run again,” McCully said. “It’s been about five years, so to get a deep run, it means a lot to our team and especially our coaches who put in all the work for our teams right now.”
South Range vs. Poland, Part 2: this time a shot at the state final four on the line.
“Five miles away from each other going at it and Week 14,” Rach said. “I think it’s a game that the Valley should be proud of.”
The Raiders and Bulldogs kickoff at Boardman High School at 7 p.m. and you can watch live, for free, on WKBN.com or the WKBN App. Find out more on how to watch right here.
