GRANGER TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Highland did not give Mayfield a single moment to believe. The top-seeded Hornets shut out the previously unbeaten Wildcats 32-0 on Friday night, November 13, in an OHSAA Division II, Region 5 semifinal, according to the Akron Beacon Journal’s game report. The Mansfield News Journal’s statewide scoreboard and Kee On Sports’ game report both confirmed the 32-0 final.
The quarter lines tell the story of a complete performance: Highland led 7-0 after one quarter, 24-0 at halftime and 32-0 after three, according to the Beacon Journal’s box score — 7, then 17, then 8, against a Mayfield team that had not trailed like this all season and never scored at all.
Senior quarterback Anthony DePompei ran the Hornets’ offense both ways. DePompei rushed for 122 yards and passed for 124 more, leading Highland to the dominant win, Cleveland.com reported in its recap of the game. A quarterback accounting for 246 yards by himself, on a night his defense allowed nothing, is the profile of a complete team playing its best football in the season’s fourth month.
Highland was still adding emphasis late. The Hornets made it 32-0 with 4:54 left in the game on a 10-yard touchdown run by Levin Clark, the Beacon Journal reported in its live coverage, a score that started the running clock against an 11-0 team.
The win sends Highland to a regional final for the fourth consecutive season, the Beacon Journal reported — if it is cold and in November, the Beacon Journal wrote, there is a solid bet you will find Highland football in a regional final. This time the Hornets arrive 11-1, with a shutout of an unbeaten team as their semifinal statement.
Mayfield’s season ends at 11-1, and its ending should not erase its year. The Wildcats were making their 17th playoff appearance and had reached the semifinal by beating Wadsworth 32-21 on November 6, the Beacon Journal reported. Friday was simply the night they met the region’s standard: Highland, the No. 1 seed, allowed Mayfield nothing — no points, no quarter won, no late consolation drive that mattered.
The two programs were meeting for the first time, according to fourseasonsfootball.com as cited by the Beacon Journal. Highland is in its 16th playoff appearance, with a 22-15 postseason record entering Friday and one state semifinal trip, in 2013, the Beacon Journal reported — history that says this program knows November, against a Mayfield program with four state semifinal trips of its own.
The final pairing is the rematch Ohio’s northeast bracket has pointed toward since September. Nordonia beat Walsh Jesuit 23-21 in the other Region 5 semifinal on Friday, as covered in Nordonia Holds Off Walsh Jesuit 23-21 to Reach Regional Final. Highland and Nordonia met in Week 4, on September 11, and Highland won that game 23-21 on Nordonia’s field, the Beacon Journal and Kee On Sports both reported.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on: the Region 5 final is set, Highland against Nordonia (both 11-1) on Friday, November 20, but the site is not settled in the reports — the OHSAA announces regional-final sites on Sunday, November 15, according to the Canton Repository’s bracket report. What is settled is the form: Highland has outscored two playoff opponents 63-7, and its defense has now shut out an 11-0 team.
Southwest Ohio produced its own top-seed statement Friday, covered in Anderson Routs Troy 50-7 for Fifth Straight Trip to Regional Final. Highland’s version was quieter and colder — a shutout instead of a shootout — but the message to the rest of Division II is the same: the top seeds are not wobbling, they are hardening.
For Nordonia, the final is a revenge game with a trophy attached: the Knights’ only loss this season is that 23-21 September defeat, and they get the same opponent, on a neutral field, with the regional championship as the prize. For Highland, it is a chance to prove the first meeting was no accident — that the two-point gap in September has, if anything, grown since.
What happens next: Highland (11-1) faces Nordonia (11-1) in the Division II, Region 5 final on Friday, November 20, at a site the OHSAA announces Sunday, November 15. The winner advances to the state semifinals on November 27, one win from Canton.
Photo: SilentMatt Psychedelic, CC BY-SA