Tippecanoe’s senior lineman Ian Bickert leads the Red Devils onto the field at Doug Adams Stadium. (Press Pros Feature Photo By Lee Woolery)
Both teams 9-0, and the Miami Valley League on the line … who’s surprised it came down to a few big plays? Tipp made more of them en route to a 35-21 win to claim the MVL title and cap a perfect 10-0 season. Red Devil RB Xavier Melton stole Xenia RB Deaunte White’s show, gashing the Buccaneer defense with two game-altering runs after the defense produced a crucial takeaway.
Xenia, Ohio – “A game like this, you know it’s going to be a game of big plays,” Tippecanoe Coach Matt Burgbacher said. “And our kids just made more plays.”
Alan Brads is a contributing columnist and writes sports at large for Press Pros Magazine.
Five stick out. Five plays that turned into five touchdowns, a tenth win, and a second straight MVL title, earned by taking out the previously unbeaten Xenia Buccaneers 35-21.
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A forced fumble in the waning moments of the first half, a 55-yard TD run by Xavier Melton, a 38-yard TD catch by Dylan Herndon, a 65-yard run, and a 31-yard completion to Will Strong on 3rd & 7. That’s 35 points. That’s the ball game.
In the de facto conference championship game, the Red Devils (ranked 4th in D-III) and Buccaneers (ranked 6th in D-II) looked like perfect equals on a down-to-down basis. Their matching 9-0 records would tell you that makes sense, and the boisterous crowds on either jam-packed side of the stadium expected nothing less. But Xenia lacked the explosivity that Tipp brandished to claim an outright conference title and cap its first perfect 10-0 season in over a decade.
Tippecanoe quarterback Larkin Thomas called his own number and scores.
“These kids earned this season,” Burgbacher said. “Nobody gave us anything all year long. There were a lot of doubters. We even maybe doubted ourselves a little bit.”
But the doubters have nothing left to say to the undefeated conference champions.
On a night expected to feature Xenia’s running back Deaunte White versus Tipp’s QB Larkin Thomas, a less likely hero arose. Xavier Melton, the Red Devil running back, played the game of his career, rushing for 182 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
“Being a part of this win was just awesome,” Melton said. “It’s the first time this group has been 10-0, and we worked so hard to get here. It shows the hard work and dedication we put in in the offseason.”
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Of course, Tipp’s embodiment of team football means Melton never had to do it alone.“The offensive linemen are the unsung heroes,” Burgbacher said. “Nobody knows anything about the offensive line, but shoot, our quarterback’s clean. His jersey ain’t dirty. When we needed to take over, those boys took over.”
Burgbacher wasn’t too interested in discussing the upcoming playoffs, he was focused on celebrating the win at hand. So were his players, who drenched him mid-interview.
Xenia’s Trimonde Henry stretches for this pass from Gavin McManus.
But the season stops for nobody, not even 10-0 MVL champions.
The Devils’ monstrous lead in Region 12 was enough to lock up the top seed before they even took the field against Xenia. They’ll face 3-7 Talawanda in the opening round for what should be an easy win … but that’s probably what Xenia thought as 10-0 MVL champs in 2022. It won’t be easy if you expect it to be. The primary challengers in Region 12 are Bellbrook, who fell to Tipp 28-7 in week 1 but hasn’t lost since, Wapak, McNicholas, London, and Bellefontaine.
“We’ve got a lot more to come through,” Melton said. “We want to go a lot further than 10-0. We can’t get complacent. We keep our heads up and know that we’re doing good, but you gotta grind every day to get better.”
Xenia will still host two playoff games as the third seed in Region 8, as long as it survives the opening week against Sidney. Deaunte White rushed for a school-record 388 yards and seven TDs against the Yellow Jackets in week 3. If only it were that easy to run the ball against TIpp, things might’ve been different.
The Buccaneers fired the cannons early, forcing a quick Tipp punt, and driving the field by air and ground. White plowed in for the opening score.
Tipp’s offense woke up and marched it back the other way. Thomas hit Strong for 31 yards into the red zone on 3rd & 7, and Melton finished the drive with his first score.
Tippecanoe’s Collin Isaac (21) and Dylan Herndon (5) celebrate after stopping the Bucs on a 4 and 8 to seal the victory.
The offenses were flashier this season with Xenia boasting the league’s leading rusher and Larkin Thomas throwing for over two thousand passing yards. But both defenses aren’t just capable, they’re elite, and it showed as they dueled deadlocked at 7-7 until the final two minutes of the half, when Tipp’s defense made a play to bolster its sputtering offense.
Xenia QB Gavin McManus found WR Trimonde Henry and as Riley Nicholls went in for the tackle, he jarred the ball loose. Tipp’s Ethan Couch scooped it up inside Xenia’s red zone, giving the Tipp offense the boost it needed.
Thomas ran it in on a designed QB run from 10 yards out to capture a 14-7 halftime lead
But the Bucs reloaded at the half and came out firing. Two chunk completions to Shawn Fishwick, who finished the night with nine catches for 122 yards, and White finally got rumbling. Xenia found the blue turf, and tied it at 14, making a packed Doug Adams Stadium roar.
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After a few punts that leveled the crowd, Tipp’s offense rediscovered its mojo, and after enough chipping away, aired it out down the left sideline. Wideout Herndon beat his man in isolation, and Thomas dropped it right in the bucket for38 yards and a 21-14 lead with 1:45 left in the third quarter.
Tippecanoe’s Xavier Melton puts the Red Devils ahead 28-21 with this 55 yard touchdown run late in the game.
But White and the Buccaneers weren’t done pillaging quite yet.
McManus found a wide-open Henry for 35 yards to the 1-yard line. And when Deaunte White needs just one yard, there’s not much point in trying to stop him. He scored his third of the night, and 3oth of the season to knot it at 21 with 10:23 to play for the championship.
Do-or-die time for the Red Devils, and Burgbacher turned not to the sophomore phenom Thomas, but to the senior tailback Melton. And he was onto something. Melton’s big guys plowed a hole for him straight up the middle, and when he hit the second level he was going, going, gone for a 55-yard go-ahead TD, leaving Xenia seven minutes to respond trailing 28-21.
McManus locked in, converting on 3rd & long early in the drive. But when the Buccaneers stood tall on a couple of runs, Xenia faced 4th & 6 and leaned on their star. A screen pass swung out to White who was chopped down two yards short of the line to gain.
Tippecanoe’s Jackson Davis makes final score 35-21 with this late touchdown run.
With 2:13 left, all Tipp had to do was pick up two or three first downs and hoist the trophy. But Melton had bigger ideas. He sped out to the left side and turned on the afterburners, torching the Xenia defense for 65 yards.
“Xavier’s a phenomenal kid,” Burgbacher said. “And good things happen to good people. He’s not even a good person, he’s a great person.”
Jackson Davis took a jet sweep five yards for his school-record 17th receiving TD to sink the Buccaneers for good.
Tipp’s defense did what what was needed to pull out the win by limiting the back-breakers that its offense excelled in. McManus threw efficiently – that’s a given for a QB who completed 40 straight this season – completing 20/27, and White rushed for 135 on 33 attempts, but the explosive play was nowhere to be found for the Bucs.
“Each guy on our defense had to do their job,” Burgbacher said. “We’re a bend-but-don’t-break defense. We’re gonna be aggressive, and they got us a couple times. But I wouldn’t change a thing we did because we knew what kind of kids we have, and how they were gonna respond to adversity.”
Adversity will come again down the line for the Red Devils, but for now it’s blue skies, Gatorade baths, an undefeated season, and two home playoff games to think about.
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