Tipp’s Xavier Melton breaks a tackle on his way to a big gain in the Red Devils’ blowout win over Butler. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Lee Woolery)
The Red Devils continue to win and continue to do so convincingly, showing the Miami Valley League they can score in many ways and stop everything other teams try to do on offense.
By Marcus Hartman for Press Pros
Vandalia, OH — Tippecanoe flexed its muscles again Friday night, this time against Butler.
After opening the season with a hard-fought 21-0 win over Bellbrook, the Red Devils moved to 4-0 by beating Piqua, Fairborn and Stebbins by a combined score of 136-20.
Minster Bank proudly sponsors the best area sports coverage on Press Pros Magazine.com.
At 3-1 with a loss to a solid Xenia squad two weeks ago, Butler looked like a candidate to challenge the Red Devils, but that only lasted for about a quarter.
Veteran columnist Marcus Hartman writes the OHSAA, Ohio State, and sports at large for Press Pros Magazine.com.
The Aviators received the opening kickoff and put together a nice drive. Luke Moeller completed 4 of 5 passes for 49 yards, moving the hosts to the Tipp 36, but that was as far as they got. Moeller nearly threw an interception on first down, took a hit to the hand and went to the bench to watch Drew Suess throw a pair of incompletions.
After punting, Butler’s defense also represented itself well, forcing a three-and-out, but that was just about the last good news for the Aviators. The Red Devils dominated from there to win 42-0.
Moeller returned after Tipp’s punt was downed at the Aviator 49 only to throw an interception to Max Deckard on first down.
Then the Red Devils went to work, driving 77 yards in nine plays to take the lead on a 41-yard touchdown pass from Larkin Thomas to Deckard, who broke wide open on a seam route and scored easily.
Deckard also helped set up the second Tipp score by returning a Butler punt 22 yards to the Butler 26, and the Red Devils struck on the first play when Will Strong took a reverse handoff then threw to a wide-open Grant Titley in the end zone for another score.
“I was hype after that one,” said Strong, who entered the night as the MVL’s leading receiver. “After every Thursday practice, we go through our trick plays, and that happened to be one of them, and we executed it.”
Butler put together another good drive after that, making it to midfield mostly on the strength of Cory Rice’s legs. The Aviators stalled out at the 49, but they could at least console themselves with Julius Rusk’s punt rolling out of bounds at the Tipp 7-yard line.
Or not.
Logan Services, in Dayton, Cincinnati, and Columbus, proudly sponsors the best area sports coverage on Press Pros Magazine.
Tippecanoe went 93 yards in five plays, including a 21-yard run by Xavier Melton to get the Red Devils some breathing room and a 43-yard play-action pass from Thomas to Strong. That set up Thomas for a 20-yard run up the middle that made it 21-0 with 8:49 left in the second quarter.
Tipp then got the ball right back with a successful onside kick and wasted little time cashing it in.
After another deep pass from Thomas to Strong put the ball inside the 20, Melton finished the drive with a 2-yard touchdown with 7:42 on the clock.
Tippecanoe receiver Max Deckard picks up yardage on a short screen pass. He did a little bit of everything for the Red Devils with a touchdown catch, interception and punt return that set up a touchdown.
“We’ve obviously had a lot of games against each other and are very familiar with what they want to do, and we came out to win this game,” Butler coach Zach Gueth said. “We weren’t trying to give anything or concede anything. So we were putting it all on the line, and obviously didn’t go the way we wanted, but we were going for it and weren’t going to concede anything.”
Were there any doubts it was Tipp’s night, that was eliminated in the final minute of the game when Thomas lofted pass over the middle on fourth-and-12 from the 18.
Two Butler defenders had a chance at the ball, but they only managed to tip it into the end zone, where Strong was by himself. Whether the ball went off his hip or he tipped it to himself, Strong wasn’t quite sure, but he ended up with it in his hands while the official raised his arms to signal a touchdown.
“I saw the ball go through No. 7’s hands, and I saw it like bounce and bounce again,” he said. “I was like, ‘That’s still a live football.’ And, you know, playing through the whistle. I still forget how I even made that catch. It like hit my hip, maybe my hand again, and I tipped it into my chest or something. I don’t even know. I might have to watch the film.”
Wilson Health proudly sponsors your favorite area sports on Press Pros Magazine.com.
That made it 35-0, a score that definitely represented the disparity between the two teams on this night.
With a running clock engaged, Tipp’s No. 1 offense put together one more methodical scoring drive to start the third quarter then took the rest of the night off with the final score set.
Tippecanoe quarterback Larkin Thomas threads the needle on this touchdown pass during another big and productive night that included 218 passing yards.
8Unofficially, Thomas threw for 218 yards and ran for 51 while Melton added 100 yards on 15 carries.
Tippecanoe head coach Matt Burgbacher said his team’s total domination of Butler was a product of a great week of practice.
“We’ve had some of our best practices that we’ve had all year this week,” he said. “They were locked in, they were loaded. And tonight was going to be a game of responses. How are we going to respond to all different kinds of things. And we had talked about those specific things all week, and our kids responded the right way. You score a touchdown, how are you going to respond? You miss a tackle, how are you going to respond? And our response was great tonight. And when we have the three energies — positive energy, competitive energy and team-first energy — we’re a pretty good football team, and we had all three of those tonight.”
While the Tipp train surged halfway to another perfect regular season, ready to take their high-flying offensive machine back home for a visit from Sidney next Thursday night, the Aviators were left to pick up the pieces from another decisive setback against one of the MVL’s leaders.
Orthopedic Associates of Southwest Ohio sponsor your favorite sports on Press Pros Magazine.com.
Hopes for returning to the top of the MVL Miami division standings — they shared the division title with Tipp and Troy two years ago — likely were put to bed Friday night, but the Aviators have two futures to play for.
Next week and the next seasons for a program that has tasted success but is clearly looking up at the powers of the conference after losing by a combined score of 62-0 to Xenia and Tippecanoe this year.
“We will learn a lot about some of our teammates here and what they are willing to put on the line for their brothers,” Gueth said. “At the end of the day, again, I think if you have a team that’s willing to play for each other, play hard for each other down after down throughout the game, you’re going to typically be successful more often than than not, and that’s what we’re trying to find out about this team. And we’re not sure where we’re at right now.”
Tippecanoe defensive end Bryton Otto helped make it a tough night for Butler quarterback Luke Moeller.
Meanwhile, the Red Devils can continue building toward late-season showdowns with Xenia (Week 7) and Troy (Week 9).
“Tipp, everybody’s ready to play us, so we can’t have that down week,” Burgbacher said. “We can’t let our guard down because the moment we do, there’s going to be a chink in our armor. So we’ve just got to be on guard at all times. We can’t afford those.
“You know, there’s some teams where we don’t really have to worry about our guys, they’re going to be ready. And the few rivalry games we got, they’re going to be ready. And we got some coming up here maybe sometime, but we’ll be ready. But again, we can only play one game a week. We can only control us. We can’t control anyone else. We can’t control what other teams do. We can only stay focused on us, and our kids did a great job.”
The Arbogast family of dealerships proudly sponsors coverage of Ohio State football on Press Pros Magazine.com.