Damion Moss celebrates his interception return for a touchdown and Urbana’s first TD after teammate Michael Hooten disrupted the plans of Northeastern quarterback Levi Mefford. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Brian Bayless)
Geron Stokes celebrated a homecoming win as his Urbana Hillclimbers outmatched and outplayed Northeastern. Urbana built a 42-point lead in the first half behind an offensive and defensive line supercharged with Stokes’ energy.
Urbana, OH – Homer’s Odyssey, or more recently Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey, tells the tale of Odysseus’s journey home to reclaim what he loves and vanquish his enemies.
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After 10-plus years away from Urbana football, Geron Stokes ended his odyssey with a glorious homecoming. He began the reclamation project months ago, and in week one struck a 49-0 blow to his first foe, Northeastern.
Stokes’ Hillclimbers trounced the Jets, bounding to a 42-point first-half lead before the Jets even gained a first down.
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“We have really good kids who worked their tails off for seven months,” Stokes said. “It was nice to see them get rewarded for their blind sacrifice.”
Pick any first-half stat. They all tell the same story. Three interceptions, three one-play touchdown “drives,” 18 yards allowed, 12.8 yards per pass attempt. You get the point. It was 24 minutes of annihilation.
Mother Nature herself had to intervene to stop the carnage. Thunder delayed the game in the early second quarter, at which point Urbana already led 28-0, despite having run only seven plays.
Stokes had the team ready to play, and it showed from the moment they ran onto the field with the air of a team that believed it would impose its will.
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“[Stokes] is all about the energy,” senior lineman Mike Hooten said. “He starts it, then that starts us. Everybody just goes off of what he does. He’s electric with it.”
Michael Hooten leads the Hillclimbers onto the field on opening night.
Unlike Odysseus’ fickle crew, Stokes’ new garrison trusts him, esteems him, and will follow him to the very end.
“[Stokes] has been great, we love it,” third-year starting quarterback Grady Lantz said. “[The coaching staff] pushes us every day. All of them. And they love us so much. We put in work every day, and they bring it too. We’re more accountable, we’re setting our standards higher.”
“He’s good, he’s strict, and he pushes us hard,” said senior Damion Moss, who plays opposite Hooten at defensive end. “That helps us to win. We’re more intentional, stricter with ourselves, and more focused.”
“It’s been wonderful,” Hooten said. “He knows what he’s talking about. Great coach, great role model, great everything. He’s fun.”
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Of course it’s easy to follow the leader when the scoreboard says 49-0 Climbers, but these guys bought in months ago. And it’s paying dividends already.
Grady Lantz rolls to his left looking for a receiver. He found Carter Houseman down the seam for a 54-yard touchdown reception.
Last year the line of scrimmage was a weak point for Urbana, which was and still is moderately undersized.
Ten percen into the 2026 campaign, there’s not even a warning light on quarterback Lantz’s dashboard about the pass rush.
The interior of Lucas Flora, Mason Rarey, and Chad McDonald went to battle on every down, and made room for Lantz, who displayed great pocket presence, to step up on the rare occasion pressure won off the edge.
Lantz completed six of 10 passes for 128 yards and touchdowns of 54, 33, and 15 yards.
“We felt like we could do anything,” he said.
As solid as the offensive line was, the defensive line was probably even better.
“The standard has gone up tremendously with everything,” Hooten said. “We’re getting off the ball better. The offensive line really knows what they’re doing, and so does the defensive line. That makes us play way faster.”
Carter Houseman gathers in a pass from Grady Lantz and sprints into the end zone to put the Hillclimbers up 14-0 early in the first quarter.
Hooten led the team onto the field with flag in hand, and led the carnivorous defensive front, which limited the Jets to 14 yards on 13 rushes in the first half.
“Mike Hooten has come a long way in seven months,” Stokes said. “And he’s only going to get better. He’s a vocal leader for us.”
On their first defensive possession, Hooten got his hand in the Northeastern quarterback’s face to affect a screen pass. Moss read the play like a book, picked off the rerouted pass, and ran it 11 yards into the end zone.
“I saw the QB dropping back and immediately read what we were taught all week,” Moss said.
The celebration in the stands went unhindered by a 15-yard penalty for Moss’ celebration of choice: punting the ball through the goalpost, which drew yellow flags from five of six officials. But in a 49-point win, maybe it’s worth it for a big-man pick six.
Drew Dixon pulls down a pass on the right sideline and saunters into the end zone to put Urbana up 28-0.
“We got our get-back,” he said in reference to last year’s seven-point loss to the Jets.
The second-level defenders carried their weight too. Colton Roberts and Carson Stokes intercepted passes in the first half, and Roberts returned his to the Northeastern 4-yard line to set up an untouched Gio Torres rushing touchdown.
Lantz hit Carter Houseman on a 54-yard seam route TD, and Drew Dixon in the corner for 33 yards and a fourth score before the storm rolled in. But most of the Hillclimber crowd waited it out, they hadn’t had their fill yet.
Lantz and Houseman connected again, 15 yards this time for six, and Torres strolled in one more time from seven to make it 42-0 by halftime. A running clock permitted Urbana only one second-half possession, but the backups cashed in with six yard run by Dexyn Yohey.
Carson Stokes gets one of Urbana’s three interceptions in the first half, reinforcing the Hilltoppers’ opening-night defensive statement.
Was the competition good? Frankly, no. After a 10-2 season in 2025, nearly all of Northeastern’s production walked across the stage in May. The Jets have some rebuilding to do. But Urbana did all they could do to the opponent in front of them. That’s all you can ask for … for now.
“The schedule’s gonna get a lot tougher,” Stokes said. “And we have to get better. So if we want to play with big-time teams, we have to do some things big-time teams do. That’s get better.”
The Climbers are a third of the way to matching last year’s win total, but the bar is a lot higher than that in Urbana.
That starts with a road game at Mechanicsburg next week, which is also 1-0 after beating Washington.
It’s a good bet Stokes will have his squad ready, and after that, what happens happens. So far that strategy and Geron Stokes are 1-0 in Urbana.
In a rare moment of levity, Geron Stokes grins from ear to ear after his Hillclimbers grounded the Jets 49-0.