The Dispatch covered two community rivalries and a matchup of central Ohio powers in Week 2 of high school football. Read our takeaways from Grove City's 48-47 win at Westland, Westerville Central's 17-0 victory at Westerville South and Watterson's 28-0 win over Pickerington Central at Ohio Dominican on Aug. 28.
Grove City’s ‘48-minute’ mantra becomes reality
Grove City spent much of the night creating reasons to lose.
The Dawgs committed three consecutive first-half turnovers, allowed Westland to score 27 unanswered points and watched quarterback Coby Smith leave with an injury late in the third quarter.
And yet, with 9 seconds remaining, Grove City (2-0) found a way to win.
The Dawgs pulled off a stunning victory with resilience, offensive firepower and plenty of belief. They led 13-0 before
unraveling in the second quarter, then trailed 47-27 after Westland’s Kaison Sours returned a kickoff 70 yards for a touchdown with 7:50 remaining.
That should have ended it.
Instead, it set the stage for a comeback that just might define Grove City’s season.
Smith returned and directed three touchdown drives over the final 7:41. He threw a 30-yard touchdown pass to Avery O’Neal, broke loose for a 40-yard run to set up another score and then took over for a final drive at the Grove City 46 with 1:42 remaining and the Dawgs trailing 47-41.
Smith completed a 14-yard pass to Blaike Jackson and added runs of 6 and 15 yards on the final possession. A facemask penalty moved the ball to the Westland 5, and Jackson scored from 4 yards out with 9 seconds left.
Alexander Elliott’s extra point provided the winning margin.
Smith finished 19 of 30 for 262 yards and rushed 15 times for 129 yards, accounting for 391 of Grove City’s 569 yards.
Jackson finished with 97 rushing yards and three touchdowns.
“(Smith) got dinged up a little bit, but he came up to me and said, ‘Coach, I’m good. I’m ready,’” Grove City coach Greg Waits said. “He’s a tough kid. He’s a competitor. He’s a winner.”
Waits said the comeback reflects a message his players hear constantly: “You come to play Grove City, you’re going to play for 48 minutes. We’re not going away. We’re not backing down. We’re going to keep coming and coming.”
The Dawgs proved it for the second consecutive week. They rallied late to beat Canal Winchester 28-27 in Week 1.
“No one on the sideline doubted that we could win this game,” Smith said. “We all just wanted it more.”
The deficit never changed his approach.
“I don’t look at the scoreboard,” he said. “I just try to score.”
Westland’s next step is learning how to finish
Westland’s explosive plays put the Cougars in position to start the season 2-0. Coach Trent Williamson’s regret was taking his foot off the gas.
Daiquan Galloway turned a short pass from Mike Daniels into a 60-yard touchdown. Sours answered a Grove City score with his 70-yard kickoff return.
The Cougars showed all night that they could stretch Grove City’s defense and score quickly, with Daniels accounting for four touchdowns, Galloway scoring three times and Gregg Thomas rushing for 100 yards.
But with a fourth-quarter lead, Williamson acknowledged that he became more concerned with protecting it rather than adding to it.
“I should have stayed more aggressive,” he said. “I don’t think they could have covered us, and we kind of sat on the ball a little bit. It hurt us in the end. That one’s on me.”
Fatigue contributed to the change in strategy.
Williamson said Westland plays several athletes on both sides of the ball, and cramping became an issue late. The Cougars failed to score on their final three possessions after putting up 47 points through the first 40 minutes.
The loss was painful, but Westland’s offensive performance also showed how far the program has progressed under Williamson, who’s in his fourth season.
“I think it shows the grit of our kids,” he said. “They’re tough. I couldn’t be more proud of them.”
–Scott Gerfen
Westerville Central snaps losing streak against Westerville South
After defeating Marion-Franklin 21-0 in Week 1, Central used another stingy performance from its defense to beat South for the first time since 2018.
The Warhawks had lost five games to the Wildcats in that span: 23-20 in overtime in 2019, 30-7 in 2022, 33-30 in 2023, 41-11 in 2024 and 24-0 last year.
Central is off to its first 2-0 start since 2019, when it started 5-0 and went on to finish 7-4. The Warhawks also have won their first two games by shutout after being shut out in their first two games last season.
Central will seek its first sweep of its Westerville rivals since 2018 when it plays its home opener Sept. 4 against North (1-1).
“Winning is a curse because then everyone expects you to win again,” Central coach Josh Franke said. “That’s where we’re now. I’m super proud of them. They need to enjoy this night, they need to enjoy this win, but at the end of the day Sunday, we have much bigger fish to fry, so we have to get after it.”
Central’s defense held South without a first down in the first half and then used two fourth-down stands in the second half to preserve its second straight shutout.
“That’s the first time that’s ever happened in my career,” Franke said of his team opening with two shutouts. “The defense is playing lights out. You have to give a lot of credit to [defensive coordinator] Zach Hill and his defensive staff. They’ve planned meticulously and they’ve put together two great weeks.”
The offense also did its part. Sophomore quarterback Nate Miller III, the nephew of former Ohio State quarterback Braxton Miller, threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to Niko Bogetich with 1:56 remaining.
Central led 10-0 at halftime thanks to Luke Warden’s 2-yard touchdown run and Cohen Buss’ 35-yard field goal.
“This is Franke’s third year,” Miller said. “Ever since he got here, we’ve been turning it around. ... We just work – that’s all we do is work – and you see it worked out here today.”
Westerville South unable to finish drives
South coach Eric Calland expects his team to bounce back in Week 3 against St. Charles (2-0).
“Half of the teams in the state lost tonight,” he said. “We have a choice to make. Which way do you want this season to go? There’s a lot of improvement we need to make.”
After being held without a first down in the first half, the Wildcats showed signs of life in the second half but couldn’t capitalize on two scoring chances.
Noah Costello’s 52-yard connection to Deshawn Alston helped set up the first scoring chance midway through the third quarter, but South eventually lost the ball on downs.
The Wildcats threatened midway through the fourth but again lost the ball on downs.
“We made a couple of big plays, but like most of our first game [a 20-13 win over Dublin Jerome] and then pretty much the whole first half tonight, we couldn’t finish a drive,” Calland said. “We’d get some momentum and then we would either have a bad snap or we’d get a penalty. It’s hard to score points when you’re doing that constantly.”
–Frank DiRenna
Defense powers Watterson to 32nd consecutive win
Two constants throughout the Eagles’ 32-game winning streak that dates to the start of the 2024 season have been a stifling defense and a high-scoring, quick-strike offense.
Even if the latter was hampered by poor field position at times and occasionally put the defense in a bind, Watterson (2-0) came up with stop after stop to the point that it sometimes felt like Pickerington Central’s 11 offensive players were going up against 13 or 14 defenders.
Senior linebacker Kaden Jones’ 14 tackles – 12 of which were assisted – and nine each from lineman Michael Boyle and linebackers Rocco Purcell and Ben Uhlenhake helped hold Central to 80 yards.
“We came out fast and firing, playing as 11,” said Jones, whose 1-yard touchdown run capped the scoring with 7:20 left. “It wasn’t just one thing [we had to focus on]. It was a lot of things combined. We love playing together as a unit.”
Watterson has outscored its opponents 63-0 to start the season. It has three consecutive shutouts, including last year’s Division III state final (30-0 over Toledo Central Catholic), and four in its last five games.
The defense returned 10 starters from a season ago, including Boyle, who carried the American flag out of the locker room and made his season debut five days after winning the 97-kilogram championship in the U20 World Wrestling Championships in Slovakia.
“Incredibly impressed with the way our defense played,” coach Brian Kennedy said. “We have a lot of guys who have played and been in big games. We put our defense in bad spots all night and all they did was respond. They have to be gassed. They were on the field a lot.”
Hoy’s big plays power up-and-down Watterson offense
Despite making his second career start, Eagles quarterback Dash Hoy looked the part of a veteran at times, rushing for a 72-yard touchdown on Watterson’s third offensive play and throwing for a key score on the final play of the first half to make it 21-0.
The 6-foot-3, 200-pound junior ran for 104 yards on eight carries and threw for 83 yards despite completing just 5 of 13 passes with three interceptions.
“They had a good game plan against him and he responded,” Kennedy said of Hoy. “They came after him and got him flustered at times, but he will learn from that.”
Senior Caden Mangini’s 1-yard touchdown run in the second quarter made it 14-0, and an interception by senior cornerback Joe Hayes set up a critical play in terms of momentum with 4 seconds left in the half.
On first-and-10 at the Central 40, Hoy found senior Carter Bellisari running a fade to the left side of the end zone. Bellisari leapt over the defending safety, snagged the ball and rumbled in from there as the half expired for a three-touchdown lead.
“If they wanted to put one safety on me, I was going to go make a play,” said Bellisari, who finished with four catches for 79 yards. “I got on his toes, made him move inside, I saw the ball and just had to go up high for the ball. You couldn’t dial it up any better.”
Mangini finished with 86 yards on 25 carries.
Burnette’s interceptions highlight rough night for Central
There were a few bright spots for the Tigers (0-2) despite being shut out for the first time since Nov. 3, 2012 – a span of 170 games – and going the first eight quarters of this season without a touchdown.
Freshman cornerback Braylen Burnette III was responsible for all of Hoy’s interceptions.
Burnette intercepted Hoy near midfield in the first quarter and twice in the third, including once in the end zone.
“We gave up some plays but we did beat them up a little bit,” Central coach Jeff Lomonico said. “That is a great team. Defensively, we were playing as a unit and taking it to them a little bit. We stopped the run pretty well overall. … We had three sacks, and our offense is going to get there. We got the ball out a little quicker and had some completions, but this defense had an eight- or nine-man box every time. They are very good.”
The Tigers, who have lost three straight games for the first time since September 2023 and were coming off a 35-3 opening loss at Gahanna Lincoln, were outgained 273-80.
Central’s longest offensive plays were two 12-yard runs from sophomore running back Edmund McAllister III, one late in the first quarter and the other on the first play of the second.
McAllister finished with 35 yards on 14 carries.
–Dave Purpura
High school sports reporters Frank DiRenna and Dave Purpura can be reached at sports@dispatch.com and at @DispatchPreps on X.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio high school football takeaways from Week 2 games in Columbus area
