Worthington Kilbourne’s Shion Jamshidi puts the ball down and Erkan Erciyas drives the game-winner through the uprights to capture the coveted Hard Road trophy. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Lorrie Gardner)
Worthington Kilbourne frantically executed a last-minute drive, allowing Erkan Erciyas to hit a long field goal as time expired, giving the Wolves a thrilling 17-14 win at neighborhood rival Dublin Scioto.
Dublin, OH – The Battle of Hard Road, pitting Dublin Scioto and Worthington Kilbourne, is a rivalry like few others and Friday’s 34th meeting (counting three playoff games) had an ending like few others.
The schools are separated by just 2.6 miles of Hard Road, with Sawmill Road in the middle. The district boundaries are drawn up such that players from Kilbourne and Scioto often live in the same subdivisions, or even across the street from one another. Athletes forge both friendships and rivalries from their Little League days that carry over to this annual (mostly) friendly grudge match that often has implications in the Division II playoff hunt and/or the Ohio Capital Conference Capital Division standings.
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Aside from bragging rights, the victor is presented a 50-pound trophy made out of asphalt from a construction site at Hard and Sawmill Roads in 1991 when massive suburban growth was taking shape in central Ohio. Kilbourne opened in 1991 and Scioto 1995.
On this night, it was Kilbourne hoisting the heavy hardware on its rival’s field after Erkan Erciyas nailed a 45-yard field goal as time expired, giving the Wolves a pulsating 17-14 victory before a packed house at Scioto.
While it took nearly an hour for fans to exit Scioto’s parking lot, Kilbourne sophomore quarterback Jackson Szabo needed just 37 seconds to drive his team into range for Erciyas. The Wolves stopped the Irish on fourth-and-4 at its 33-yard line to presumably force overtime.
Worthington Kilbourne’s Jackson Szabo engineered a 37-second drive to get his kicker in range.
Szabo completed passes to Shion Bamshidi (14 yards) and two to Alex Meek (12 and 13) to give Kilbourne a chance.
“I wasn’t nervous. I was ready the whole time on the sideline for this opportunity,” Erciyas said. “I had never made one this long before in a game, but I’ve hit a 52-yarder in practice. The minute I hit it, I knew it had the distance. To hit the game-winning field goal in this of all games game is absolutely incredible. It doesn’t feel real right now, to tell you the truth.”
Along with the drama, the winning drive had a bit of controversy. On the Szabo-to-Meek pass on the sideline to set up the field goal, it appeared that Kilbourne got away with a basketball-like pick play, as another receiver in the same area screened off the defender. The Scioto bench and home fans were livid that offensive pass interference wasn’t called.
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“We were trying to get chunks of yards fast to get Erkan in position,” Szabo said. “We’ve repped that play to Alex a lot in practice. It wasn’t supposed to be a pick play but I can understand why someone might think it looked that way.”
Worthington Kilbourne’s Luke Page grinds out some of his 143 yards on the night.
Kilbourne coach Michael Edwards said he watched Erciyas closely in warmups and thought he had the leg to make it from 50 yards. He made two 29-yard field goals in the first half.
“We wanted to the get the ball to the left boundary, so we ran a switch sail, where two receivers were in the same area,” he said. “We wanted the ball on that side so he could get all of his leg into it and hook it toward the right post.”
While white-clad fans of Kilbourne (4-1, 2-0) rejoiced, the loss was a bitter pill to swallow for Scioto (3-2, 0-2), which turned in a stirring second-half effort only to fall short.
Both teams are clearly on the upswing. Kilbourne has had just one winning season since 2015 (6-4 in 2020). Scioto won just seven games in the previous three seasons, including a 1-9 mark in 2024.
“It’s really disappointing, but the bottom line was we didn’t play four quarters of football,” coach Alex Place said. “We challenged the guys at halftime to play with more physicality, and they did. We wanted to control ball and keep it out of their quarterback’s hands.”
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After completing 10 of 13 passes for 140 yards in the first half, Szabo was largely silent until the game-winning drive. He was intercepted by Grant Sauer late in the third quarter, and after marching the Wolves deep into Irish territory, fumbled the center exchange on a read option plays and lost a tug of war with 250-pound Jacob Thomas scrambling for the ball with 2:25 remaining.
Worthington Kilbourne’s Brendan Rhoads celebrates a fumble recovery during the final seconds of the first half.
Scioto then drove all the way from its own 14 to the Kilbourne 33, but couldn’t convert. The Irish went for it six times on fourth down and converted two.
“We’re trying to win the Hard Road Trophy,” Place said.
Luke Page rushed for 143 yards on 22 carries for Kilbourne, which trails the series 19-15. He scored on a 13-yard run, and added a two-point conversion, to give the Wolves a 14-7 lead in the second quarter.
“This game is really unique because it feels like you’re playing for everyone who’s played in this game in the past,” Page said. “It was a really tough, hard-nosed game. Throughout the second half, it seemed like we were both trying to prove who was tougher.”
Eden Williams picked up 109 yards on 21 attempts for Scioto. Nevin Densel scored on a 7-yard run out of the wildcat formation. He almost had a second in the third quarter, but fumbled trying to stretch the ball over the goal line.
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Scioto tied it 14-all midway through the fourth quarter on a spectacular 23-yard TD catch by Isaiah Jones from Grady McMillen in the end zone. He wrestled the ball away from defender Griffin Miller.
Worthington Kilbourne’s Trace Holcomb and Shion Jamshidi celebrate with the Battle of Hard Road trophy.
“It was a weird night in that there were a lot of penalties and turnovers, but we just kept believing and kept fighting,” Edwards said. “Games like this are helping us get battle tested. We won some games early with our high-scoring offense, but the past two weeks we’ve done in in different ways, which pleases me.”
Kilbourne entered the contest sixth in the rugged Division II, Region 7 and Scioto was 10th. There was some chatter in the postgame huddles, especially Scioto’s, about a potential rematch in the playoffs.
As the teams filed off the field and through the parking lot toward their respective locker rooms inside the school, it was not uncommon to see Kilbourne and Scioto players walking side by side discussing the game and congratulating one another. That typifies what this neighborhood rivalry is all about.
And for anyone who’s keeping score, Scioto has outscored Kilbourne 694-688 in the series.
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