The 2020 season came to an unfortunate end for Saint Ignatius football on Saturday at Byers Field, as the Wildcats fell in the Regional Semifinal to Medina, 33-26.
After a lightning storm on Friday night at Byers Field forced the Regional Semifinal to be postponed until Saturday at 2 p.m., the Cats reset themselves looking for a third straight playoff win. The game was no doubt an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish, and truly was an enjoyable game to watch and listen to.
“First of all, give Medina credit. That’s a good football team, and the quarterback is very good, he made some throws that were really impressive,” said Head Coach Chuck Kyle ’69.
Mangan opened our playoff bout with a touchback kickoff to Medina. Quickly, Medina quarterback Drew Allar got to work with a big pass to the Bees’ 43-yard line. The Wildcat defense didn’t let that strike worry them, as they got in the backfield to blow up the next play for a loss of 5 yards. The defense held strong on 3rd and 16, forcing the Bees to punt on their opening drive. After Pfaff and the offense got their feet wet with an incomplete pass deep to Dunstan, the Wildcats went for it all on the very next play. On the second play of the drive, Pfaff unloaded to Becker complete for a monster touchdown, 7-0 Cats lead with 9:36 left in the first quarter.
The Bees came back swinging, as they found the deep ball and got to the Wildcat 15-yard line. After a pass interference call and a run, Medina reached the Wildcat half yard line, but a huge false start for the Bees brought them back to the 6-yard line. A short pass resulted in 4th and 4 and the Bee kicking team made their way onto the field. The field goal attempt ended up no good, keeping it 7-0 Wildcats. The following Ignatius drive was a speedy one, as Mangan booted the ball away after three plays.
A costly face mask call by the Wildcats set up the Bees very well to take a shot at the end zone. Medina capitalized on a 36-yard touchdown catch by Luke Hensley, tying it 7-7 with 3:57 left in the first quarter. The Bees made an odd call and squib kicked the kickoff, so Ryan Waldron got his wheels moving and motored on down to the 50-yard line to open up the Wildcat drive. The Cat offense didn’t seem to be in sync, as Mangan came on to punt after three and out.
Drew Allar went back to his deep ball and found a man wide open to the Wildcat 26-yard line. A few chunk runs set up the Bees on the Wildcat 13-yard line. A beautiful loft pass from Allar to Hensley secured a touchdown, setting the lead at 14-7 Battling Bees with 1:54 to go in the first quarter.
Lamirand and Pfaff showed great athleticism on the next drive, as each picked up huge first downs to move the chains into Medina territory. The drive ultimately ended with a Mangan 45-yard field goal attempt that missed wide over top of the right upright.
To no surprise the Medina offense came back onto the field looking for the big pass and indeed they got it. Again, Hensley made a huge grab to get to the Wildcat 10-yard line. But Saint Ignatius got a lucky break as holding was called on Medina, bringing the ball back to the Bee 20-yard line. The Cats picked it up in the secondary and held Medina on 3rd and 27 for a punt to follow.
The Wildcats again had good field position to score, but the Wildcats fired an unfortunate pick on the Medina 47-yard line. If the momentum couldn’t shift anymore in Medina’s favor, Allar rocketed a pass to Jackson that got the Bees all the way down to the Ignatius 4-yard line. The goal line defense was rock solid from the Cats, as Cole Smith had a huge block to limit the Bees to only a 21-yard field goal. 17-7 Bees led with 7:13 to go in the half.
Pfaff rallied his offense on the next drive and completed a slew of passes to multiple targets. Three straight first downs started with Nick Lamirand on 3rd and 10 then Bodamer for 12 yards into the Bees’ side of the field, and finally with a slant pass over the middle to Becker for a 17-yard touchdown. The only thing that didn’t go as planned was the blocked PAT by Medina, keeping the score at 17-13 Bees.
Medina again found a strand of luck, as on 3rd and 5, the snap was fumbled by Allar, but he managed to recover and deliver a first down pass. The Bees then went for a big yardage and got Drew Hensley in the endzone for a touchdown to increase the lead to 24-13 with 2:47 remaining in the first half.
The Wildcat offense then only made a brief appearance, as Mangan came on to punt with 53 seconds to go. Somehow, someway, the Bees put together another stellar drive, as Allar led his team downfield into Wildcat territory again. Allar capped off his drive with a touchdown pass to Michael Rodak.
The Bees took a 31-13 lead into halftime.
“The halftime was good, they were focused,” Coach Kyle said. “In the first half, give the Medina defense credit. I thought we’d run the ball better in the first half as we’ve been doing, but they did a good job of clogging it up. We had to retool some things inside. So we said, ‘We gotta hit some passing here. We did a hurry-up and we had some momentum going. Our first drive came down and we didn’t get in. That was a shame because that was a nice drive. But that didn’t discourage them, they took the ball down and scored the next time.”
The Cats opened up the second half on their own 35-yard line. Pfaff went back to his tight end Lamirand on 3rd and 7 and moved the chains. Bodamer did the same, as he got a big first down on 3rd and 4. A nice group of Waldron runs moved the Cats down to the Bee 10-yard line. Unfortunately on 4th and 2 from the Medina 10, the Cats went for it and came up empty on an incomplete pass to Lamirand. The Bees did not change their deep ball game plan at all, as Allar shot one down to the Bee 28 for an 18-yard gain. Cole Smith nearly picked off a screen pass on the next play. Allar then used his legs twice to convert for first downs. Dorian Boyland turned on his jets and sprinted down to the Wildcat 7-yard line on a rare run play from Medina. Boyland got shut down on the next two goal line plays and 3rd and 4 resulted for the Bees. The Cats hung tough on defense and forced another field goal attempt for Medina. Again the field goal attempt was missed, the score remained 31-13 Bees with 3:21 to go in the 3rd.
Joe Pfaff put together a good drive again, starting out with Jack Dunstan for a 12-yard catch and run. Becker then got a nice grab for 8 yards. Waldron pushed for the 2-yard first down. Pfaff then broke into Bee territory with a dot to Becker on the 45-yard line. Becker again had a nice catch for the Cats, as he came down at the Medina 39-yard line. Ryan Waldron burst ahead for a big run to the 20-yard line, ending the 3rd quarter. Becker again came in clutch with a catch to the 8-yard line that then got followed up with a Pfaff scramble for a touchdown, 31-19 after the failed 2 point conversion with 11:47 left to play.
The Cats played solid defense on the next Battling Bee possession. Smith had another nice breakup to force Medina to punt the ball away.
“Coverage-wise, we were getting our linebackers back in coverage where they were attacking. By doing that, they started to run a bit, but we had to do something because they were throwing too well,” Coach Kyle explained. “So they were getting some yards and eating some time, they weren’t too upset because the clock was rolling. There was the third and long there, if we could have gotten that tackle, we get the ball back.”
Pfaff had two straight incompletions to open the must-score drive, but again big man Lamirand came in huge with a 3rd and 10 first-down catch. The offense was feeding Lamirand, as he got another big catch for 10+ yards with 8:12 to go in the game. Dunstan then got another grab to the Wildcat 40-yard line, followed by a Bodamer first down at the Bee 30. On 3rd and 10 at the Bee 30, Lamirand did not disappoint, as he caught another pass, this time to the Bee 15-yard line. Waldron saved the next play with a one-handed catch to the Medina 12. To finish off his drive Lamirand hauled in a 12-yard touchdown pass on the very next play. The score stood at 31-26 with 6:42 to play.
The defense got rolling early in this must-stop drive with a big-time sack by star linebacker Aidan Hubbard at the Bee 18. On 3rd and 15, the Bees came awfully close to converting, and on 4th and 1, Medina decided to go for it. Boyland got the first and more, allowing the Bees to kill more clock. Hubbard again had a big tackle for loss soon after forcing the Bees to punt, but with just over a minute left to play.
The Cats started on their own 14-yard line in this must score drive. A sad ending soon followed, as Pfaff took a sack in the endzone for a Medina safety, 33-26 Bees. Medina got the ball back and then victory kneeled their way out of Byers Field to move on in the playoffs.
After allowing 31 points in the first half, the defense tightened up, limiting Medina to 59 passing yards in the second half. Aidan Hubbard led the team with 7 tackles, 3 tackles for loss, and 1 sack.
On offense, Joe Pfaff led the offense, completing 26-of-45 passes for 352 yards and 3 touchdowns. Pfaff’s 26 completions is tied for second-best in program history, tying Dave Ragone’s October 10, 1997 effort vs. Canton McKinley. Pfaff’s 352 yards rank eighth in program history.
Nick Lamirand enjoyed an incredible day at tight end, hauling in 10 catches for 120 yards and a score. Lamirand’s 10 catches are tied for second-most in a single game, tying Robby Parris (2005 vs. Mishawaka), Michael Siragusa (2012 vs. St. Xavier), and Jack Cook (2015 vs. St. Edward). John Becker also did great work, with 6 catches for 118 yards and 2 touchdowns.
“We just ran out of time. Give Medina credit, they did some nice things,” Coach Kyle said. “Mentor vs. Medina will be a good football game.”
Overall, the Wildcats battled plenty of adversity this season, as did many other teams. Lost practice and weight room time, a short regular season, and injuries led to some tough losses for the Wildcats. But two postseason wins is impressive, as is the way the Wildcats battled.
“I’m just proud of the way the kids handled this season. Few people realize what these kids had to go through to play this season,” said Coach Kyle. “To say you don’t have any double sessions and the way it worked out, playing Ed’s then Massillon then St. Xavier then the playoffs, that was a lot. The kids responded so well. I looked them in the eye and said, ‘Even if this were a normal season, we’d be in the playoffs. At that point, the record is 0-0. Even when you’re 10-0 in the regular season, you’re 0-0 in the postseason. The kids handled that really well. I don’t think too many people thought we’d be making it to the Regional Semifinals after those first few games. We played against great teams, and came up short this time.”
A special thank you to all the seniors on the football team as well as senior managers and coaches as this now marks the ending of their tenure with the Saint Ignatius football team. Additionally, I and the rest of the SIBN team wanted to extend a big thank you to our co-moderator Mr. Joe Ginley ‘12. Mr. Ginley has been a cornerstone of the SIBN, he has been the foundation for many young journalists and broadcasters including myself but he now looks forward to his new home at John Carroll University as Sports Information Director. He may not be going far and there is no doubt he will see the SIBN and Ignatius again, but we are forever grateful for Mr. Ginley’s service and are excited to see what the future holds for him.