Kenton Ridge Holds Off Urbana To Continue Its Own ‘Climb’

One coach celebrated a program-defining win while the other lamented his own club’s lack of culture after Kenton Ridge held on to beat Urbana.

Springfield, OH — Kenton Ridge improved to 7-1 with a 21-14 win over visiting Urbana on Friday night. 

The Cougars also stayed perfect in Central Buckeye Conference Kenton Trail play (3-0) with the kind of win that made both coaches happy, oddly enough. 

That seventh-year Kenton Ridge mentor Jon Daniels was grinning ear-to-ear made perfect sense. 

In fact, the Cougars knocking off an opponent with a winning record for the first time this season had him sounding like a Disney character singing a morning cartoon theme song. 

“Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog — God is good,” Daniels said, insisting those be his first words on the victory and promising his players would understand if they heard it. 

Mystery celebrations aside, this was a game Kenton Ridge needed for a lot of reasons — pride, playoff points and proof of concept to name just three. 

“We felt like our program needed this one,” Daniels said. “You know the guys that we just saw on the field, the guys that have been through and helped build something, they needed this one. Too many times we’ve got to the back end of our schedule and just come up short, and the way this one went down against such a well-coached, good football team with really good players, for it to go down that way and come down to a couple fourth-down stops and all those things is just special I think for our seniors.” 

A year ago, Kenton Ridge was 4-1 before finishing 1-4 with losses to Bellefontaine, Urbana, Jonathan Alder and London. 

This season, the Cougars have already beaten BHS and Urbana with the Pioneers and Red Raiders up next. 

“I think it was the the right next step for our program to go out and beat a program like Urbana, and I say that because I have a ton of respect for those guys over there,” Daniels said. “I’ve got buddies on their staff. I think they are absolutely worker bees, and they’re going to go they’re going to refine everything they do. That’s who they are. So for our guys to come out and come up against that, and come out on top says a lot about who we are.”

Kenton Ridge senior Brody Runkle entered the night leading the Central Buckeye Conference in rushing, but his quarterback stole the show. 

Bryndyn Parsons, another senior who bided his time as a defensive back prior to this season waiting to take over on offense, threw three touchdown passes in the first half to stake the Cougars to a 21-0 lead. 

“Our quarterback’s a special kid, an absolutely special kid,” Daniels said. “So to see him have his day in the sun is more than deserving.” 

Urbana received the opening kickoff and drove to the Cougars 29, but a holding flag negated a 24-yard run by quarterback Grady Lantz and put the Climbers back on the 35.

On the next play, Lantz lofted a fade ball to his brother Tate, but Kenton Ridge senior Preston Smith pulled it away from him as the players went to the ground. The official on the sideline ruled Cougars ball, and they made it count by driving 90 yards for the first touchdown of the night. 

That came via a 2-yard pass from Parsons to Levi Harper with eight seconds left in the first quarter. 

Urbana got the ball back and picked up a pair of first downs, but Lantz fumbled on a scramble and Kenton Ridge recovered at the Urbana 43. 

From there the hosts needed only three plays to find the end zone with a 22-yard touchdown pass from Parsons to Brennan Shaffer. 

Parsons made it 21-0 with a 31-yard pass to Smith with 4:08 left in the second quarter. 

That capped a quick five-play drive on which the Cougars overcame a third-and-17 with a 52-yard screen pass from Parsons to Shaffer.  

Urbana struck back with its high-powered passing game finally getting into gear. Lantz completed passes of 26 and 30 to Carter Houseman then ran for 10 yards to the KR 14. 

Carson Stokes took over from there, slicing through the KR defense for a 14-yard touchdown on a draw play that made it 21-7 Kenton Ridge with 2:24 left in the half. 

Urbana turned the Cougars over on downs to start the second half then drove 66 yards for a touchdown. Lantz finished it with a 3-yard run with 4:02 to go in the third quarter. 

Down one score, the Hillclimbers had plenty of time to tie the score, but Urbana head coach Geron Stokes said the comeback started too late. 

And for that, he seemed to take some satisfaction in seeing it come up short as his first year back at his alma mater continues after 14 years away. 

“I think it’s perfect,” Stokes said of his team absorbing its third loss of the season. “We are fully capable of that again. Wide-eyed, non-competitive, and then you want to try to compete in the second half, and it doesn’t work out for you. It shouldn’t work out for you. Credit to Kenton Ridge. They were hungry, and our guys were deer in the headlights again. Very, very capable of that. We just gotta get better. 

“We’re so far away from having a good culture. We’re just trying to get better, and consistent discipline, toughness, execution, competitiveness — we’re not consistent there. So, like, this-this is a day-in and day-out culture build. So, who knows? Who knows what team’s going to show up for us?”

Sure enough, Urbana was not able to climb out of the hole. 

Of course, the Cougars had a lot to do with that. 

The Cougars couldn’t score in the second half, but they made the plays they had to defensively to hang on and secure a win they sorely needed for the respect of not only outsiders but themselves. 

“We really needed this game,” said Smith, a senior who contributed on both sides of the ball. “This gives us a lot of hope. It gives us a lot of confidence going into our next one. We just got to continue to work and grind all we can in practice, get focused on the next team.” 

After forcing a three-and-out, Urbana got the ball at its 25-yard line and drove to the Kenton Ridge 19, but Smith and Levi Harper dropped Lantz for a 1-yard gain on fourth-and-6 to end the march with 10 minutes on the clock. 

The Climbers got it back less than two minutes later at the Cougar 21 thanks to a Carson Stokes blocked punt, but again Kenton Ridge turned them away. 

This time a fourth-and-12 pass attempt from Lantz to Drew Dixon was ruled incomplete when he went down to the ground to try to catch it. 

Kenton Ridge took over with 6:35 to go but was unable to run out the clock. 

The Cougars did pin Urbana inside its 20, but Lantz got them out near midfield with a 30-yard completion to Houseman. 

They got one more first down on a QB sneak by Lantz on fourth-and-inches, but that only put off the Cougars’ Homecoming triumph for a few more plays. 

After three incompletions, Runkle intercepted a desperation pass at the Kenton Ridge 6 with 51 seconds left, and the Cougars were able to run the clock out this time because Urbana only had two timeouts remaining.  

“Listen, we just got to get better,” Stokes said. “We signed up for this job to help kids, and we got to get more consistent with more effort, more discipline, higher execution on a consistent basis. We just don’t put like great practices together. We don’t put great lifts together. We don’t put great periods together, and we got to we got to get to the point where we do that.” 

Next up for Urbana is a visit from Bellefontaine before the Hillclimbers finish the regular season at Tecumseh. 

According to projections from JoeEitel.com, they have clinched a playoff spot in Division IV, Region 16, but Stokes wasn’t interested talking postseason Friday night. 

“Listen, the activation energy it takes for us to have a good practice is insane,” he said. “We don’t value that yet. We don’t value consistency yet. We don’t have the ability to be disciplined and do that at a high level with high energy every single day — yet. That’s part of the culture build, and we have games like this where we’re zombies in the first half, and we get what we deserve. It’s great.”

Kenton Ridge continues its late-season gauntlet with a trip to Jonathan Alder next week. Then the Cougars complete the regular season with a visit from defending league champion London. 

The Cougars are in playoff position in Region 16 as of now and control their own destiny because piles of points are available via the Pioneers and Red Raiders, who are both 6-2.