St. Henry’s Drew Langenkamp stretches for the end zone and one of his three touchdowns in Friday’s 49-7 playoff win over #1 seed Tri-Village. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Tri-Village becomes the first…as St. Henry ended the drama in the first twelve minutes, scoring 35 points in the first quarter – 49 for the the half – to knock out the first #1 seed in the tournament.
New Madison, OH – Yogi Berra once famously said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over,” trying to explain why, or how, the New York Yankees scored 16 runs in a World Series game.
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And Friday night the St. Henry Redskins proved that what goes around, comes around, scoring 35 points in the first quarter against the #1 seed Tri-Village Patriots in their opening game of the 2026 Division VI playoffs. By halftime St. Henry led 49-7, the running clock was in play for the second half, and somewhere Yogi was nodding his head as if to say…I told you so.
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And the #9 seed Redskins, who finished second to unbeaten Marion Local in the Midwest Athletic Conference standings, proved their own I-told-you-so moment for the second week in a row, this time 49-14, seven days after pasting Madison-Plains High School last Friday in round one of the playoffs, 42-0.
“It didn’t start how we wanted it to, but I’m very proud of our group,” said St. Henry coach Josh Werling. “Just very proud of how our offensive and defensive lines played tonight. Our guys competed, and this was a complete team victory.”
And to Werling’s concern about how it started, Tri-Village (10-1) received the opening kickoff in the game and senior Griffin Richards returned 82 yards through the middle of the St. Henry kick coverage for an untouched touchdown. Before 10 seconds had elapsed from the clock Tri-Village owned a 7-0 lead.
Little did anyone suspect.
Who could have known? Tri-Village’s Griffin Richards scores on the game’s opening kickoff, but Friday’s Division VI playoff game quickly turned in St. Henry’s favor.
“Best thing that could have happened,” said a St. Henry observer from the sidelines. “It woke us up.”
Upon receiving the ensuing kickoff, St. Henry marched down the field in seven plays – two minutes and two seconds – and scored on a 36-yard touchdown strike from quarterback Landon Schwartz to tailback Drew Langenkamp…7-7. They were indeed awakened!
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Just 40 seconds later, on Tri-Village’s next possession, Lankenkamp, playing in the secondary, picked off a pass from Patriots quarterback Brecken Gray and returned it 13 yards for a pick-six touchdown to give St. Henry a quick, and unexpected, 14-7 lead.
St. Henry’s Drew Langenkamp looks for the end zone following his first quarter interception. He found it…to put the Redskins ahead, 14-7.
And so it began. On their next possession St. Henry’s defense forced a three-and-out and Tri-Village muffed the snap on a punt attempt and a hurried punt went out of bounds near midfield, teeing things up for St. Henry with good field position.
At 4:27 Schwartz completed another quick drive by running nine yards for a touchdown to make it 21-7 – the Redskins’ third touchdown scored in less than eight minutes.
Once again St. Henry kicked off, once again Griffin Richards received the kick, and coughed up the football inside the 20-yard line after getting belted by a Redskins tackler. One play later running back Will Speck ran it in from point-blank range at 4:06 to make it 28-7.
The Tri-Village crowd was stunned. The sideline, itself, was in a state of shock. With still four minutes left in the first quarter they were down three scores, and the offense had turned the ball over twice in the shadow of their own goal line.
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Now starting their fourth drive of the quarter, Gray took the snap and never took his eyes off intended receiver Hayden Hunt waiting for the pass on the Patriot sideline. But St. Henry defensive back Tate Boeckman never took his eyes off Gray, jumped the route, and picked off the pass in front of Hunt. Their third turnover of the quarter, moments later Langenkamp scored his third touchdown on a four-yard run with 1:52 remaining on the clock…35-7, St. Henry.
Three critical first-quarter turnovers doomed the Patriots…Griffin Richards loses the ball after being hit on a kickoff return.
St. Henry kicked off again and Patriots coach Matt Hopkins changed quarterbacks, choosing to end the suffering of Brecken Gray with sophomore Ryker Marshall to start the second quarter.
Marshall moved the ball well, all the way down into St Henry territory for the first time in the game. But the drive stalled, Tri-Village turned the ball over on downs, and on the ensuing drive St. Henry struck again with a 14-yard touchdown pass to Tate Boeckman for their 42nd point of the half, following the extra point…42-7.
Another possession, and more frustration for the Patriots. St. Henry began a final drive for the half that included a leaping one-hand catch by Boeckman to extend the drive. And with time expiring, Schwartz found Boeckman again in the corner of the end zone for 14 yards and his second touchdown catch of the half to go up 49-7. Just as stunned over 49 points in a half, no one on the St. Henry side could even remember the last time, if ever, the Redskins had scored 49 points in a half!
Big plays…St. Henry’s Tate Boeckman came down with this one-hand grab to extend a drive at the end of the second quarter.
“You could not have imagined it,” said Matt Hopkins after the game. “You feel pretty good after running the opening kick back for a touchdown. And then you’ve got a really good game plan you want to execute, and like Mike Tyson says…everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth. And we got punched in the mouth. We dug ourselves a hole and didn’t respond real well.”
St. Henry, conversely, could not have responded better.
Drew Langenkamp ran the ball 12 times in the first half for 118 yards and a touchdown.
Will Speck ran it 6 times for 69 yards and a score.
Landon Schwartz ran it 6 times for 52 yards and a score…while throwing 6 for 11 and 123 yards and three TDs.
St. Henry accounted for 362 yards of total offense in the first half, alone, 439 for the game, and nearly tripled the total for Tri-Village, crippled by four costly turnovers in the game.
“It didn’t start the way we wanted,” said Boeckman of his big night – an interception and a pair of touchdown catches. “But we knew what we had, and we knew what they had. It was awesome to come out and have a game like that in front of a packed house – to get to play for our community and to get it done in the playoffs.”
Quarterback Landon Schwartz was a weapon on the ground and through the air. He ran six times for 52 yards.
“All those big plays were good,” added Langenkamp. “Less stress. But all the credit goes to the line and the receivers who were out there blocking for me. And Tri-Village is a great team, 10-0, and knowing that we can do it against a team like that gives you confidence that you can do it against the teams were going to see.”
“Things just got away from us real quick,” said a gracious Matt Hopkins, later, able to smile even in the gloom of a devastating loss.
Playing against the St. Henry seconds in the third quarter, the Patriots were able to score a mop-up touchdown on a short run to make it 49-14. But with a running clock, and more than a few running for the parking lot, the game concluded without further offense or embarrassment.
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“That’s a good football team,” added Hopkins. “That’s a REALLY good football team. And you can’t have the turnovers…you can’t have the pick-six…the fumble on a kickoff. You can’t do that against a MAC team. Especially against a MAC team that won the state championship last year. Ryker Marshall gave us a spark [at quarterback] and that’s what we needed. He hasn’t gotten a whole lot of reps this year, but he did a good job. He competed.”
Hard hitting…St. Henry’s Austin Zimmerman stops Patriot quarterback Ryker Marshall in his tracks during the first half of Friday’s Division VI playoff game.
Josh Werling, in his post-game comments, could only express satisfaction over the execution and consistency of his team for a second week in a row against playoff competition. Plagued by injuries early in the year, his group is back together now, healthy, and playing with confidence as well as any Division VI team in the state.
“Yeah, we’re a confident group, but it’s important to not confuse confidence and arrogance,” he said. “Now we’ve got to keep applying that each week, continue to build on what we have as a base. I really like our team right now. There’s a humility about them that I appreciate very much. As a head football coach you want a group of great young men…and this is a group of great young men.”
With two wins in his pocket, Werling now looks forward to different competition to come – tougher challenge – starting with Versailles next week, winners Friday against Cincinnati College Prep, 35-10.
“That’s a great Versailles football team, and you talk about teams with a good front…that’s one with a good front [line]. So we’re excited, I think we get to host this one, and that’s a darn good football team coming in.”
Their second meeting of the year, St. Henry won the regular season game in September, 34-21.
As to the much-talked about strength of Division VI across the state, St. Henry certainly must rank now on anyone’s list. After losing in consecutive starts to start the year, the Redskins have since won nine of ten, and six in a row. And for what it’s worth, the first team in the bottom six seeds (9th) to knock out a #1 seed in the region.
And what is it worth?
It means you get to play another game next week. All anyone can hope for…in November.
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