FINDLAY, Ohio — No. 7 seed Findlay made its home playoff opener a rout Friday night, Oct. 30, beating No. 10 North Olmsted 54-14 in a Division II, Region 6 first-round game, according to the statewide OHSAA scoreboard published by the Mansfield News Journal and confirmed on the Stateline Sports Network playoff scoreboard.
The Trojans entered the night 6-4 and leave it 7-4, while North Olmsted’s season ends at 5-6. The 40-point margin was the largest by any Northwest Ohio team in Friday’s opening round and matched the kind of complete performance Findlay needed after an up-and-down regular season in the Northern Lakes League.
Findlay’s path to a home game was anything but smooth. The Trojans lost 45-24 at home to Whitmer on Oct. 9, according to their schedule posted by MaxPreps, then steadied themselves with a 22-21 overtime win at Anthony Wayne on Oct. 23 — a result that looks better by the week, because Anthony Wayne itself won a first-round game Friday night.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on. What we know: the final score, the seeds, and the bracket consequences, all confirmed across multiple statewide scoreboards Friday night. What we’re still waiting on: the official scoring summary and individual statistics from the game, which had not been published by the schools or the OHSAA as of early Saturday. NewsForce247 does not report individual scorers it cannot verify, and this story will be updated when the box score posts.
Even without the play-by-play, the shape of the night is clear. A 54-point outburst is Findlay’s biggest offensive output of the postseason stage it has reached, and holding a 5-5 North Olmsted team that scored 54 points of its own in a shutout of Normandy two weeks earlier to just 14 points says as much about the Trojans’ defense as the scoreboard says about their offense.
Findlay was not the only Northwest Ohio winner Friday. Elsewhere in Region 6, Fremont Ross beat Sylvania Southview 42-14 and Avon Lake shut out Toledo Waite 44-0, according to the Mansfield News Journal scoreboard, while Cleveland Rhodes edged Lakewood 24-22. One region over, NewsForce247 covered Bellevue’s 48-0 shutout of Highland and Anthony Wayne’s 42-21 win over Toledo Start on Friday night.
The bracket now gets considerably harder. Findlay advances to play at No. 2 seed Olmsted Falls (8-2) on Friday, Nov. 6, in the regional quarterfinals, according to the OHSAA pairings published by Heart of Ohio Sports. Olmsted Falls had a first-round bye, which means the Bulldogs will be rested while the Trojans come off a physical opening-round game.
There is history working in Findlay’s favor, though: the Trojans’ overtime win at Anthony Wayne showed this team can win a tight game on the road against a quality opponent, and a Findlay team that was 6-4 and seeded seventh has already exceeded the expectations that came with a mid-pack seed. North Olmsted, meanwhile, closes at 5-6 — a season that included a 54-0 win but ended against a Findlay team playing its best football at the right time.
What happens next: Findlay travels to Olmsted Falls on Friday, Nov. 6, for a 7 p.m. kickoff, with the winner advancing to the Region 6 semifinals. Kickoff details and ticket information are posted through the OHSAA and the host school as game week gets underway.
NewsForce247 will continue following the Trojans and the rest of Northwest Ohio’s surviving playoff teams through the regional rounds, with updated scores and brackets after every Friday night.
For Findlay’s seniors, Friday also closed a loop: a group that watched the Trojans take their lumps in a difficult midseason stretch — including the 21-point home loss to Whitmer — got to open the playoffs at home and deliver the program’s most lopsided postseason win of the bracket’s first night in Northwest Ohio. Programs are judged in November, and Findlay’s November has started exactly the way its coaches would have drawn it up.
The timeline of Findlay’s season tells the story of a team that peaked late. The Trojans opened the playoffs as a No. 7 seed precisely because the middle of their schedule was unforgiving, but their final two results before Friday — the overtime win at Anthony Wayne and a competitive finish to the regular season — pointed to a team whose record understated its form. A 40-point first-round win confirms it: Findlay is playing like a higher seed, which is exactly what makes the Trojans a dangerous quarterfinal opponent for an Olmsted Falls team that has not played a game in two weeks.
Photo: Mbrickn, CC BY-SA 4.0