Nelsonville-York is playing its best football right now. The Buckeyes have won each of their last five games after a rocky 0-2 start and have shown some improvement in every game.
On Saturday, they will find out how much they have improved as they travel just under two hours to Fairland for the regional quarterfinal.
Head coach Rusty Richards thinks it might be the biggest challenge yet this season.
“I guess we’re going to find out Saturday night,” Richards said. “Fairland is a very good opponent; they are going to be one of the better teams we’ve seen this year. I guess we’ll see how much better we are (than the beginning of the season). It’s been while since we’ve seen competition as good as these guys.”
In the regular season, the Buckeyes only saw three teams that won their first-round playoff games. Trimble, Nelsonville-York’s week one matchup, is the only one of those teams that remains in the playoffs.
The last team they played with a winning record in the regular season was Wellston, who intercepted Buckeyes quarterback Drew Carter twice in the fourth quarter.
Since those first two games, Nelsonville-York has looked unstoppable. The defense hasn’t allowed more than 16 points in a game and the offense is averaging just over 37 points during the win streak.
Despite that, Richards still feels as if the best is yet to come.
“I still don’t feel like we’ve played our best game yet,” Richards said. “We’re getting better. We feel like we’re getting better. Defensively, we’ve had some really darn good games, and offensively, I still don’t feel like we’ve played a complete game yet.”
Last week’s win was as close as the Buckeyes have been this season to the complete game Richards wants. Symmes Valley was a completely different team from the Fairland team Nelsonville-York will be seeing on Saturday.
Symmes Valley ran a compact offense and rarely threw the ball, while Fairland prefers to spread the field and throw a lot of screen passes. Nelsonville-York feels prepared to face the spread attack since it has seen it already a few times this season.
“We’ll go back to what we did against Athens and Meigs,” Richards said. “It’s not like we haven’t seen the spread, we’ve probably seen the spread more than we’ve seen the double-tight wishbone. Coach Andrews will put together a good game plan for Fairland and we’ll get back to more modern football.”
Upon first look at the brackets before the playoffs started, Nelsonville-York was confident that last week’s game would be its last game at Boston Field this season. After Loudonville upset Centerburg last week, that look has changed.
If the Buckeyes win after their long road trip along the Ohio River, they will have the play at home in the regional semifinal. Home field advantage in that game would be a huge boost for the Buckeyes.
“At the beginning we were thinking, ‘OK, if you go and upset (Fairland), being the lower seed, now we turn around and go two hours to Centerburg,’” Richards said. “Opposed to walking out onto Boston Field, that’s a major plus. We don’t have to get back on the bus again, and it’s always nice playing home games.”
The Buckeyes want to have that opportunity to play at home one last time this season, and they feel confident that they will be able to do just that.
