MASSILLON, OH- Round 2 of the Division 1 football playoffs would bring us to Jackson high school where it would be a game of the year contender between the #4 seed Jackson Polar Bears and the #5 seed Canton McKinley Bulldogs. This would be a Federal league Championship rematch and going into this one everyone knew it was going to be a dog fight that would not disappoint. These two teams met just 3 weeks prior in a week 9 matchup at McKinley where the Jackson Polar Bears would shock the world taking down the Bulldogs a final score of 20-7. It was the first time they had beaten the Bulldogs since 2007.
Both teams were dominant in their first round playoff wins with the Polar Bears taking a 24-7 win over Brunswick and the Bulldogs taking a 49-7 win over Normandy.
The story around this game was who's defense would be able to stop the other team's loaded offense. Both of these teams offenses have been absolutely stacked all season with Jackson having one of the best running backs in the League in Kristian Satterfield, and arguably the best one two punch for receivers in Noah Colando and Max Cowles. On the other side of things was McKinley's offense, which is one of the best offenses in Northeast Ohio. Led by Quarterback Kam Montgomery the Bulldogs have a lethal running attack with running Backs Jamar Johnson and Nino Hill. It doesn't stop there with the Bulldogs having a crazy deep receiving room with Darius Hill, Keith Quincy, and Deejay Britt. With a packed Robert Fife Stadium everything was on the line for these teams. In a Federal League championship rematch it was win or go home.
This one wouldn't take anytime to get going. On the first play of the game Kristian Satterfield broke off a huge run that would result in a Polar Bears touchdown on the first play of the game!
With this Kam Montgomery and the rest of Antonio Hall's offense would take the field and try to match the Jackson touchdown. The Bulldogs would do just that as Montgomery marched down the field and would throw a 20+ yard touchdown pass to receiver Deejay Britt who would hurl it in with a one arm and tie things up for the Bulldogs.
They would force a Polar Bears punt end the 1st and the Bulldogs would start with the ball to start the 2nd.
The Bulldogs would not get anything going on their 2nd drive and it would be the Polar Bears turn with the football to get back on the board. Jackson would get back on the board with a strong drive that would be capped off with a 30+ Yard passing Touchdown from Quarterback Lucas Ecrement to one of Jackson's best offensive weapons in Max Cowles. The Pat would be good from Kicker Cooper Mizeur and that would put the Polar Bears in front 14-7.
The rest of the 1st half would be a struggle for both teams but especially the Bulldogs turning the ball over on downs twice in the red zone in the 2nd quarter. Both teams would end the 1st half of this one scoreless and the Jackson Polar Bears would take a 14-7 lead into halftime over the McKinley Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs wouldn't waste any time making a statement to start the 2nd half with running back Jamar Johnson having a 98 Yard Kick return to tie this game up at 14. In my personal opinion this is where the game took a turn and the momentum switched on the side of McKinley.
The Bulldogs Defense led by Dior Garner forced a turnover and McKinley would march down the field and put 7 more up on the board. This time it would be senior Utility man Nino Hill who punched it in for 6 and would give McKinley their first lead of the night going up 21-14.
This is what makes McKinley such a lethal team, the fact that they can spread the ball out and go to 5-6 different guys that can all make a play when you need one. McKinley's defense would force a turnover on downs and they would march down the field again to score their 3rd touchdown of the quarter. Punching it in this time around would be do it all quarterback Kam Montgomery who kept it for a quarterback sneak on the 1 yard line and would give the Bulldogs a 28-14 lead in the 3rd quarter.
The Polar Bears needed to get something going against this McKinley defense and they finally found a way to break something off. Max Cowles would find his way into the end zone again this time with a 30+ yard screen pass to the house and would make it a 7 point game.
The Bulldogs would answer right back as Antonio Hall's offense would find the end zone again, this time receiver Keith Quincy went over the top of a Jackson DB to find the end zone for 6 more. McKinley's kicker Thomas Mankowski would knock in his 5th extra point of the night. Mankowski was a perfect 5/5 on the night and that made it a 35-21 Bulldogs lead going into the 4th.
The Polar Bears would start the 4th quarter with a field goal that would cut into the Bulldogs lead and make it a 35-24 ballgame. The Jackson defense would come up and do their job as they shut out the McKinley offense in the 4th quarter and would get the ball back. The Polar bears would execute as running back Kristian Satterfield would punch in his 2nd touchdown of the day and the Polar Bears had signs of life only trailing by a score. Head Coach Jay Rohr wanted to get creative and it paid off as the Bears went for 2 and converted as they had a trick play that had receiver Nathan Kuntz throw a pass into the end zone that ended up in the hands of Max Cowles who was Jackson's MVP of this one. McKinley's lead was down to 3 at 35-32 as their offense walked onto the field to try to end this with under 4 minutes on the clock. The Polar Bears would get the ball back with just over a minute left, and two timeouts. Lucas Ecrement and the Polar Bears were not able to move the ball into field goal position and Dior Garner would have the game sealing sack giving the ball back to McKinley with around 30 seconds left. Quarterback Kam Montgomery would take a knee and the clock would hit zero. In what was in my personal opinion the game of the year, the McKinkey Bulldogs would prevail and get their revenge against a very talented Polar Bear team.
The Bulldogs will not have an easy task ahead of them next week as they will take on the Region 1 number 1 seed Mentor Cardinals. But if there's anything we know about this McKinley team is that they can hang with the best of them and they have the talent to compete with anyone.
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