Bellbrook Batters Tippecanoe After Waiting Out Weather Delay

Bellbrook won a battle of two of the Miami Valley’s top programs and a clash of styles Friday night in Tipp City 

Tipp City, OH — After a two-hour lightning delay, Bellbrook brought the thunder to City Park on Friday night.

The result was a 27-14 Golden Eagles victory over Tippecanoe in a Week 1 showdown between two of the area’s top Division III programs.

Bellbrook earned a split of the eight games played between the teams since 2017 and provided both computer points and pride for the Golden Eagles, who lost the last two matches by a combined score of 49-7. 

“We wanted to change the narrative,” said veteran Bellbrook coach Jeff Jenkins. “We feel like we’ve been pretty balanced with Tipp City. They’ve got us the last couple years, but you know, if you look at the history of the series we’ve had some serious battles. I don’t know where we end up from a series standpoint, if that gives us one game up or not, but we kind of felt a little bit disrespected. We we took it personally if people were not giving us a chance.” 

Showing off the Wing-T, Wishbone and other formations of yore, Bellbrook put together a pair of punishing drives to open up a 13-0 lead midway through the second quarter. 

Senior QB Grant Diorio scored first, rolling to his right on a bootleg and taking it in from six yards out with eight seconds left in the first quarter. 

That capped a 52-yard drive that started after Jack Kosins recovered a Tipp fumble, though the hosts saved some face by blocking the PAT kick.

After forcing the Red Devils into a 3-and-out, Bellbrook took advantage of another relatively shoot field to drive 59 yards for another touchdown. 

Kosins struck the first big blow of the drive with a 16-yard cut-back run then two plays later pancaked Tippecanoe’s edge defender to give Kenton Gerdes room to run for 11 yards so it was only fitting Kosins would finish the drive with a 1-yard touchdown run. 

This time the PAT was good to make it 13-0 with six minutes left in the second quarter. 

The Red Devils showed some mettle of their own, though, and it was no surprise who led the way. 

Senior quarterback Larkin Thomas rolled to his right and found tight end Carson Schultz over the middle for 32 yards to get the next drive going. 

Two plays later, Colston Artz went around right end, sidestepped one tackler, got a block and was off the races. He appeared gone until a Golden Eagle sliced in to stop him at the Bellbrook 4, a gain of 36 yards but no points. 

That hustle loomed large through three plays and a Bellbrook timeout, but Thomas came through again on fourth-and-goal from the 4.

While Tippecanoe coach Matt Burgbacher never seemed to hesitate in keeping his offense on the field, Jenkins called timeout to make sure his defense was in position for the crucial snap. 

What the Red Devils cooked up made that matter little, though. Desperate for a score to keep the Eagles from being able to chew up more clock with their offense, Tipp dialed up a play for the two most known weapons. 

As the season wears on, more playmakers are likely to emerge, but for now the most accomplished are Thomas and Grant Titley.

The 6-foot QB rolled left and lofted a pass high to Titley, who used all of his 6-2 frame to get the ball and hold off a pair of defenders for the touchdown. 

The ensuing PAT made it 13-7, where it stood after Bellbrook got a pair of first downs and let the clock run out on the second quarter. 

“I thought we had our moments where we executed really well,” Burgbacher said. “We just didn’t have enough of those moments.

“We’re looking for that consistency in the run game and the pass game — those are are still work in progress, but we’re all going to get better at that.”

Jenkins’ decision to take the air out of the ball and go to the half made sense because he was out of timeouts, and his offense is not built to score quickly. 

Nonetheless, the danger of passing up a scoring opportunity was demonstrated quickly in the third quarter. 

That’s because Tipp still had Larkin at quarterback and Titley at receiver. On a third-and-7, Bellbrook blitzed and Larkin stood in, took a hit and got a pass away to Titley over the middle. With no deep safety, Titley was off to the races for a 72-yard touchdown, a result of a blown assignment according to Jenkins.

Owen Bailey’s PAT kick put the Red Devils on top, but could the defense make that hold up? 

Tipp forced one punt only to see their offense go three-and-out. 

The hosts could not turn back the visitors the next time, yielding a 65-yard touchdown drive that spanned the end of the third quarter and beginning of the fourth.

A surprising conversion of a third-and-16 was a key moment in the drive and the game. Diorio made a play fake then tossed a deep out to the left to Kosins, who shook loose up the sideline for 26 yards. 

Gerdes finished the drive by going in over left tackle from seven yards out, and the Golden Eagles got back the extra-point they lost earlier by having Diorio toss the ball to Kosins then let Kosins throw it back to the QB for a 2-point conversion that made it 21-14 with 11:42 to go. 

The Red Devils got the ball back twice, but they were not able to do much with it before punting each time. 

Then it was Kosins time again for the visitors. 

Though he nearly went from hero to goat by muffing the punt, the senior who also played defensive back all night was able to corral the ball before a Tippecanoe player could. 

Then he slammed the door with a back-breaking 34-yard touchdown jaunt down the home sideline to convert a key third down with 2:36 left in the fourth quarter.

That was an appropriate way to end it both for Bellbrook and Kosins, a budding star for a team in search of all new weapons after most of the players who touched the ball regularly in 2025 graduated. 

“I really believe that Jack Kosins is one of the better players to Division III in the state of Ohio, and that’s why we got him doing everything because he’s so talented and he’s just a naturally gifted football player,” Jenkins said. “He loves football. We could play him at any position and he’d probably be successful.”

While the Golden Eagles celebrated in the south end zone, Burgbacher told his team they still have 15 games left — a reference to the lofty goals the program has set after making the state semifinals twice in the last four seasons. 

He also acknowledged they are only guaranteed nine more contests, but insisted the only thing lost was the chance to go 10-0 in the regular season for the third straight year. 

“What they do, they do it well,” Burgbacher said. “The worst thing I heard this offseason was Coach Jenkins was going back to calling the offense. He calls a great game, so credit to them. They put us in a lot of conflicts with that offense, and there are times where you got 10 guys doing their job and then one guy not. 

“I didn’t think we did a real good job tonight at block destruction or getting off blocks, so obviously that’s an area that we’re we’re going to have to work on.”

He was also disappointed with the breakdowns in the secondary at critical times. 

“You know, they don’t want to throw the ball, but when you allow them to throw it when they want to throw it, they’re going to be very effective. We didn’t put them in too many situations where they had to do that, but when we did, how many third and longs did they convert? So they made plays when they had to, and again, credit to them.”