BELLVILLE — It would have been easy for the Danville Blue Devils to give up.
It would have been easy for them to hang their heads and pack it in.
They trailed Lucas 20-0 with 11:48 left in the fourth quarter of Saturday night’s Division VII regional semifinal matchup at Clear Fork High School.
The Cubs, aiming for their fourth regional final appearance in five years, had just picked off Danville junior quarterback Walker Weckesser for the second time in a row. They appeared poised to march the ball down the field, as they’d done four times already, using their patented multi-back rushing attack to drain the clock and put the game on ice.
It was cold – temperatures hovered around freezing, with a stiff wind and snow flurries accentuating the occasion – and Lucas had all the momentum. The Cubs’ sideline buzzed with championship anticipation; the Blue Devils’ had fallen silent, exhaustion and frustration appearing to set in.
It would have been easy for Danville to call it a night. The Blue Devils had had a good season. Plenty to celebrate, despite the way it finished.
But this group wasn’t done yet.
Danville, bent but not broken, got off the mat and made possible the improbable. The Blue Devils rattled off 27 unanswered points in the fourth quarter – capped off by a game-winning 43-yard touchdown strike with 13 seconds remaining – to stun Lucas and advance to their first regional championship game since 2017.
Danville is now one of eight Division VII football teams left playing statewide.
“That’s just the culmination of winning some games this year and never giving up,” Danville head coach Matthew Blum said after the 27-20 victory. “That’s kind of what I told our kids over there. They could have easily just thrown in the towel. They could have just said, ‘Eh, it is what it is. Move on.’ No, they didn’t.
“That speaks to the level of where our program is going. I couldn’t be more proud of our kids and just everybody involved.”
The Blue Devils (11-2), seeded third in Region 25, will face top-seeded Warren John F. Kennedy (11-1) in the regional title game next Saturday night. The OHSAA will announce the game location on Sunday. The winner will advance to the state semifinals.
This Danville team is one of just nine in the school’s 110-year football history to advance to the regional championship round.
“It means a lot to me. This is what this class has been waiting for since we were little kids playing together,” said Weckesser, who threw two touchdown passes and caught another to lead Danville in its miraculous fourth-quarter comeback Saturday.
“For the town, it’s everything. We couldn’t do it without them supporting us.”
The Cubs (6-7), meanwhile, will turn in their pads Monday after another remarkable season. Seeded 10th in the region, they upset seventh-seeded Toronto and second-seeded Lowellville on the road before falling to Danville in the Sweet 16.
Lucas won two postseason games this year for the fifth straight season.
“We played a hell of a schedule, a bear of a schedule, and we stayed the course,” Lucas head coach Scott Spitler said. “We graduated 16 seniors last year. The difference was, last year when we played (Danville), we were the senior team. This year, they’re the senior team.
“But we lost all that experience and we had to overcome that inexperience early against a darn (good schedule). We had a murderer’s row there, right in the middle of the season, with Mogadore (12-0), Crestview (12-1) and Lima Central Catholic (9-4). And we took a few on the chin in tight games. I mean, of our six (regular season) losses, five of ’em were by less than five points.
“But we learned from it and it paid off in the playoffs, to make the run that we did and to get in this game.”
CUBS DOMINANT EARLY: Lucas built its 20-0 lead Saturday through solid defense and opportunistic offense.
The Cubs struck first with 7:43 left until halftime, scoring on a 31-yard field goal from junior Aidan Culler. That capped off an eight-play, 32-yard drive that began at the Danville 46-yard-line.
Then, on the game’s next possession, Lucas’ defense came up clutch.
Danville crossed midfield for the first time all night, reaching the Cubs’ 30-yard-line on a series of Max Payne runs. The Blue Devils had a third-and-two with momentum on their side.
But Lucas stood tough. The Cubs stopped Payne short of the first-down marker on third down. Then, on fourth down, they did it again – bottling the senior up at the line of scrimmage and forcing a turnover on downs.
The stop served as a catalyst for the Cubs’ offense, which had stayed dormant until this point. Senior quarterback Andrew Smollen led Lucas on a seven-play, 71-yard drive that resulted in a 8-yard touchdown pass to junior Zach Diehl, who bolted up the sideline and into the end zone, giving the Cubs a 10-0 lead with one minute to play until halftime.
Lucas carried this momentum into the second half.
The Cubs scored on the opening drive of the third quarter, as Smollen found Diehl streaking down the sideline for a 43-yard touchdown bomb, capping off an 11-play, 87-yard march that took nearly six minutes off the clock.
Then, after Diehl intercepted a Weckesser pass over the middle, Lucas struck again. Smollen led the Cubs into field goal range, and Culler did the rest, knocking through a 41-yard attempt to give his team a 20-0 lead with 1:16 left in the period.
DANVILLE FLIPS THE SWITCH: Lucas tightened its grip on the game early in the fourth quarter, when junior Logan Toms intercepted a Weckesser pass over the middle to give the Cubs the ball back with 11:48 remaining.
But the Blue Devils weren’t done yet.
Faced with its tallest task of the season, Danville got off the mat and kept fighting. The Blue Devils forced a three-and-out defensively, then took the ball and began to drive.
Weckesser led Danville 77 yards in less than two minutes, eventually finding senior Spencer Payne over the middle for a 10-yard touchdown strike, which got the Blue Devils on the scoreboard and narrowing the deficit to 20-6 with 7:46 remaining.
Chaos ensued on the game’s next play.
Max Payne’s onside kick ricocheted off the hands of a Lucas player, leading to a 10-man scrum for the ball near midfield. As referees began to pull players off of each other to determine who had possession, Danville sophomore Caleb Lucas emerged with the pigskin, hoisting it in the air and sending the Blue Devils’ once-dormant road crowd into a frenzy.
Danville’s offense would capitalize on this momentum two plays later.
Weckesser, nimble and elusive in the pocket, avoided a sack on second down and launched a 40-yard missile to senior Kaiden Colopy, who found himself all alone behind the Lucas secondary as the play evolved. Colopy caught the ball at the 10, turned and bolted into the end zone, throwing his hands into the air as Danville’s crowd went berserk once again.
Danville’s two-point conversion failed, but now the Blue Devils had time – and momentum – to work with. They trailed 20-12 with 7:27 left.
Lucas would convert two first downs on its next offensive possession. A fourth-down carry past the sticks moved the ball to the Cubs’ 42-yard-line with 4:42 remaining.
But the Blue Devils held tough from there. Danville allowed just two yards over the next two plays, and after Max Payne broke up a third-down pass over the middle, the Cubs were forced to punt with 3:06 left in the game.
Danville received the ball at its own 33 and went back to work.
Weckesser evaded pressure and turned on the jets, sprinting 32 yards up the sideline to the Lucas 35. He tight-roped the white line while receiving key blocks from his receivers.
Then, four plays later, Danville went for the dagger.
Facing a fourth-and-13 with 2:04 left on the Lucas 38-yard-line, Blum called a timeout. He moved Max Payne, the team’s starting tailback, to the quarterback position. And he moved Weckesser to wide receiver.
“Weckesser came to us and he said, ‘Coach, I can’t throw. My hand’s killing me,'” Blum recalled. The junior said afterwards that he’d been stepped on moments earlier, and his knuckles were in so much pain that he could no longer squeeze the ball.
Payne had started at quarterback off-and-on for Danville over the past four years, and Blum said he felt confident the senior could do the job.
“We just made the switch,” the first-year head coach said.
It paid off.
On fourth-and-long, Payne rolled out and launched a missile off his back foot, finding no other than Weckesser for a 17-yard gain and a first down.
He then found Colopy on the sideline, who made a defender miss and bolted 13 yards to the Lucas 8, setting up a first-and-goal situation with less than two minutes remaining.
The duo hooked up again two plays later. Payne found Colopy in the flat, and the senior cut up the middle and dove into the end zone, bringing Danville within 2 with 90 seconds left.
The Blue Devils needed the two-point conversion to tie it up. And with Payne in the backfield, they got it.
The senior rolled out to his right before looking back to his left, where he found wideout Ryan Lucas streaking across the middle of the end zone, unguarded. Payne fired a bullet to Lucas, who caught the ball cleanly, and chaos once again ensued on the Blue Devils’ sideline.
Danville, down 20 to begin the quarter, had tied it up with 1:23 remaining.
AN ENDING TO REMEMBER: Lucas had 83 seconds to issue a game-winning drive. The Cubs started at their own 35-yard-line and advanced to the Danville 42 on a series of quick passes, setting up what looked like a potential field-goal situation for Culler.
But the Blue Devils had other ideas.
They broke up back-to-back passes after a 9-yard gain, setting up fourth-and-one with 51 seconds remaining. And when Smollen handed the ball off to Toms in the backfield, the season hanging in the balance, Danville senior Dillon Looney made his mark. The lineman broke into the backfield and grabbed Toms by the hips, wrestling him to the ground and forcing a turnover on downs.
Danville would get the ball back with 47 seconds left.
Payne, still in at quarterback, wasted little time moving the Blue Devils down the field. He hit Caleb Lucas on the sideline for a two-yard gain. Then, he found Weckesser over the middle for 13 more, moving the ball into Lucas territory as the clock ticked.
On first-and-10 from the Cubs’ 43-yard-line, Payne dropped back to pass. Feeling pressure from the left side of the line, he stepped up and escaped the pocket, moving to his right.
Another blitzer broke into the backfield, and the senior let it fly.
The ball sailed high and far and seemed to hang in mid-air forever. It was a near-perfect spiral – the white laces on the pigskin cutting through the cold night sky – and it held the attention of thousands as it traveled.
When it landed, the entire Clear Fork Valley knew.
Weckesser caught the toss heard ’round north central Ohio at the goal line, having beaten his man down the field, and he dove into the end zone. Danville’s fan base erupted into a deafening roar, fueled by an intoxicating mix of joy and disbelief, while Lucas’ contingent fell quiet, stunned by what had just occurred.
Danville had taken its first lead of the game with 13 seconds remaining.
Lucas ran two plays before time expired, but to no avail. And when the final horn sounded, Danville’s sideline stormed the field, leaping and hugging and high-fiving with glee.
The Blue Devils had done it. They’d made possible the improbable – and had punched their ticket to the Elite Eight.
“I don’t even know what to say. … It’s unreal to me, how we came back like that. But it feels amazing,” Weckesser said afterwards. “That’s what we worked for in the offseason. We just want to show everybody that Danville’s back.”
CLOSING THOUGHTS: Lucas had opportunities to close Danville out late.
The Cubs, normally a force on the ground, appeared primed to run down the clock and send the Blue Devils packing.
But Danville had other ideas.
The Blue Devils’ defense made play after play in short-yardage, late-down situations, giving the offense an opportunity to close the gap down the stretch. And they did just that.
“I think our run defense did a great job. I really do,” Blum said. “They had a couple nice runs, but all-in-all, I thought we contained their run really, really well and we forced them into some passing situations.
“And we made a couple adjustments at halftime. We put ourselves in a bad spot down there (on Lucas’ first-half touchdown pass). We had a linebacker matched up over a receiver. So we fixed some things personnel-wise and alignment-wise. But again, I just think it’s our kids never giving up. They just believed in the process, and they’ve grown up. It’s been really cool to see.”
Spitler said the Cubs’ failure to execute down the stretch – both offensively and defensively – proved costly against an explosive Danville team.
“You’ve just gotta finish. You know, we had ’em right where we wanted ’em going into the fourth quarter, and we just lost guys in the secondary and gave up way too many big plays. And we didn’t help our defense out any offensively there in the fourth quarter (either). We should have finished drives and put this away,” the 14th-year head coach said.
“Take nothing away from them – I mean, they played four quarters. And you know, when you’re this deep in the playoffs, everybody’s good. It comes down to inches. It comes down to one or two plays. And they made plays in the fourth quarter and we didn’t, and that was the difference.”
Danville didn’t give up Saturday, despite being down 20 points heading into the fourth quarter. Blum said two phrases were repeated constantly on the sideline during that time:
“Never give up and never stop fighting. That’s all we said,” the head coach recalled. “And what a lot of people won’t see in this game is, we had so many missed opportunities in the first half. I mean, we had a dropped long-yard (gain) there. We didn’t convert on the fourth-and-one down here. So it wasn’t really 20-0 in my opinion. We had some missed opportunities (because) we didn’t execute.
“I thought our defense played phenomenal. They let us be in a position where our offense could finally get going. Some things opened up, and our kids just started making plays.”
Danville’s depth also proved beneficial late. The Blue Devils’ ability to sub in Payne for Weckesser at the quarterback position – and have the duo execute two touchdown drives in the game’s closing moments – made the difference down the stretch.
“It just goes back to the fact that those kids are so dynamic. You can throw anything you want at those kids and they just pick it up,” Blum said. “I’m just tremendously proud of those two, especially, along with the rest of our kids. I couldn’t be more proud of our program.”
Weckesser said he had all the confidence in the world in Blum’s late-game maneuver. Payne had played quarterback before, and he’d played wide receiver. The move seemed natural, and it paid off.
“Even when I’m at quarterback, I have to ask him stuff. He helps me out when I’m at quarterback,” Weckesser said of Payne. “That last drive, I asked him if he could go in at quarterback because I was having trouble throwing. And he said, ‘Yeah.’
“We’re just there for each other all the time, and it’s just pretty amazing.”
Saturday marked Danville’s second straight last-minute playoff victory. The Blue Devils saw their 21-point first-quarter lead against Hillsdale evaporate last week, and they needed a gutsy fourth-quarter push to win 42-41 and advance.
Where does this late-game resiliency come from? Blum said it’s the product of all the unseen hours – the work the team put in from January to August, preparing for moments like these.
“I think it just goes back to how much work they’ve put in, and the ability they’ve had this year to win close games. Going into this year, I said our mental toughness was the one thing I had questions about. That was the one thing I wanted to improve in our program. And I think finally, we’ve gotten to the point where we’re mentally tough,” Blum said.
“We can handle any situation, and I think tonight just proves that.”
A night that ended in jubilation for Danville ended in sorrow for Lucas. The Cubs appeared devastated in the moments after the final buzzer, as tears were shed and hugs were exchanged.
Spitler said he was proud of the way his team fought, despite the end result. He praised this year’s senior class, which will go down as one of the most successful in school history.
“Tonight was their 50th game as a senior class. Not very many classes get the chance to play an entire extra season in their career. They are 11-4 in the playoffs now,” Spitler said. “So they’ve got nothing to hang their head about.”
This marks two straight years Lucas has lost in the regional semifinals. Spitler hopes the team’s underclassmen will use Saturday night’s heartbreak as motivation moving forward.
“Tonight stings. (But) the younger guys have gotta use this to fuel ’em in the offseason,” Spitler said. “It is what it is. You know, that’s football, and that’s playoff football. Things are tight, and they made plays in the fourth quarter and we didn’t. That was the difference.”
Danville, meanwhile, will live to play another week. The Blue Devils will play in their ninth regional final in program history next Saturday night. If they win, they will be the fifth team in program history to reach the state semifinals.
Late Saturday, however, Blum said he wanted to stay in the present. Nights like this don’t come around often. The coach said he wanted his team – and the community behind it – to let this win sink in.
“I’m just really happy for our kids. I’m really happy for our community. I mean, our fans were fantastic tonight. Even if we’re down 20-0, they’re still cheering as loud as they possibly can. They sent us out of our own community (today),” said Blum, still visibly bewildered.
“I just can’t speak to (how) happy I am, and how proud I am to be their coach.”
