Athletic?….Ironton running back and Missouri commit Shaun Terry hurdles a tackler during Saturday’s Division V title win over Liberty Center. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Sonny Fulks and Julie Wright)
In an evenly-played Division V state championship game with numerous momentum swings in the fourth quarter, Ironton star and Missouri signee Shaun Terry was in the middle of just about everything as a receiver, runner, returner and defender.
Canton, OH — With one jaw-dropping highlight reel play after another, Ironton receiver Shaun Terry looked like an athlete who belonged in a Southeastern Conference game, not a Division V high school state championship game, Saturday night.
“Every time he touches the ball, you hold your breath,” Ironton coach Trevon Pendleton said. “I know there are a lot of great players out there, but I don’t think it gets any better than Shaun Terry.”
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In an otherwise evenly-played contest, Terry – despite his 5-foot-10, 180-pound frame – was head and shoulders above any other athlete on the field as his presence loomed large all night long in Ironton’s 28-17 win over Liberty Center before 4,981 fans in Tom Benson Hall Of Fame Stadium.
Terry, who a few days earlier signed a letter of intent to play at the University of Missouri (he had decommitted from Notre Dame earlier), took offense that he wasn’t even nominated for Ohio’s coveted Mr. Football Award presented to the state’s top player and admitted that he wore a chip on his shoulder on the state’s biggest stage.
“I’ll admit that it felt great, especially since they wrote me off for Mr. Ohio,” he said with a grin. “But it felt even better to do it for this group of guys and our community, which really needed this tonight.”
Ironton running back Zayne Williams breaks through a tackle attempt during the first half of Saturday’s Division V title game.
All Terry did was amass 291 all-purpose yards and score three touchdowns. He made 10 receptions for 148 yards, rushed twice for 75 yards, returned a punt 35 yards and made a game-sealing interception with 30 seconds remaining. But more than that, it was the timeliness of his big plays that continually broke the hopes of a gritty, resilient Liberty Center team that fought to the end but ultimately had no answer for Terry.
“Obviously, Shaun Terry is the difference in this game,” Liberty Center coach Casey Mohler said. “He’s a special player and he made some big plays. As far as scheming to try to stop him, well, we could throw three guys on him but they’ve still got a lot of other athletes who can hurt you. You can only do so much. At some point, you’ve just got to say that’s going to make plays, and we have to come back and make some plays of our own. I will say they know how to put him in positions to make plays.”
On the game’s opening series, quarterback Braden Schreck hit Terry on a short pass over the middle and he hurdled over a defender who hoped to take his legs out on the way to the end zone.
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Schreck and Terry connected again on an 11-play, 95-yard drive in the second quarter. This time, Schreck flipped a shovel pass to the speedster, who sprinted 46 yards for another TD that made it 14-0.
Liberty Center countered with a nine-play, 70-yard scoring drive and tacked on a 39-yard field goal as time expired to cut the deficit to 14-9 at halftime.
Ironton’s Shaun Terry pulls down Liberty Center running back Waylon Rentz during Saturday’s Division V OHSAA title game.
Fast forward to the midway point of the fourth quarter when Schreck , while absorbing a ferocious hit from a Tigers defender, launched a deep ball downfield. Terry leaped high and somehow managed to snatch the ball out of the hands of defender Cam Kahle for a 46-yard gain. Two plays later, Schreck scored on a keeper from four yards out.
“It’s my mentality that I feel if the ball is in the air, I should get it,” said Terry, who came into the state final with 78 receptions for 1,487 yards and 22 TDs.
Behind second-string quarterback Kaden Kreinbrink, Liberty Center drove for a score and added a two-point conversion to make it 21-17 with 1:52 left.
Terry (who else?) recovered the ensuing onside kick.
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Hoping just to run out the clock and begin the celebration, Schreck fumbled a handoff exchange and Hunter Spangler recovered for LC.
In a golden position to score a dramatic come-from-behind win, Waylon Rentz was stood up on a third-and-2 run by Josh Johnson, who forced a fumble that Brycen Mullins recovered. Johnson is a Penn State signee.
Ironton quarterback Braden Schreck dives for the end zone during Friday’s Div. V title win over Liberty Center.
Terry then ran 67 yards to the house on a reverse for Ironton’s final score, then capped the game with an interception.
This marked only the third state title, and first since 1989, for Ironton (15-1), which had taken home the silver trophy nine times – three since 2019.
“You hear about football almost daily in the city of Ironton,” Pendleton said. “We eat and sleep football in this community and these guys love it. It’s a huge weight off our shoulders, for sure.”
On the opposite end of the spectrum, it was a bitter pill to swallow for Liberty Center (15-1), which lost the state title game to Perry in 2023 and was making its third straight final four appearance. The senior class departed with a 55-6 record but no gold trophy to show for it.
Ironton did a bang-up job shutting down Rentz, who came in having rushed for 1,784 yards (on a 10.2-yard average) with 29 TDs. He was held to 34 yards on 20 carries.
“We’re undersized and we don’t have any Division I athletes but I thought we played really well and put ourselves in a position to make something happen,” Mohler said. “I thought our kids played as hard as they could for 48 minutes and that’s all you can ask. It just didn’t go our way tonight.”
After all these years…Division V champion Ironton celebrates its first state title since 1989.
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