CANTON, Ohio — The Canton Central Catholic football season is alive again. The Ohio High School Athletic Association ruled that Youngstown Liberty used an ineligible player during its 26-16 win over Central Catholic on Friday night, Oct. 30, and Liberty must forfeit the victory, the Canton Repository reported Saturday.
The ruling flips the result of the Division V, Region 17 first-round playoff game. No. 9 seed Central Catholic, which left the field Friday night believing its season was over, instead advances to a regional quarterfinal at No. 1 seed Lake County Perry on Friday, Nov. 6, according to the Repository. Central’s record moves to 7-4 with the forfeit, while Perry enters the quarterfinal at 10-0.
The reversal is one of the rarest outcomes in Ohio high school football: a team eliminated on the field on Friday night restored to the bracket by ruling before the next round is played. Playoff forfeits for ineligible players are uncommon at any level, and they are rarer still once a postseason game has been completed, because eligibility questions are usually settled before the tournament begins.
Friday’s game itself was a hard night for the Crusaders even before the ruling. Central quarterback Brock Bourquin was injured early in the second quarter and did not return for the second half. “He took a shot in the ribs,” Central coach Jeff Lindesmith said after the game, in comments reported by the Canton Repository. “He had trouble breathing.” Bourquin finished with 79 rushing yards on 13 carries.
Carter Competty ran for a pair of touchdowns for Central in the loss that is now a win, and Axel Estrada kicked a 22-yard field goal, the Repository reported. Those points, scored in a game the Crusaders trailed at the final whistle, now stand as the scoring line of a playoff victory.
For Liberty, the forfeit ends a season that appeared, for about a day, to include a first-round playoff win and a trip to face the region’s top seed. The OHSAA’s ruling, as reported by the Repository, was based on the use of an ineligible player in the game; the association’s eligibility rules govern everything from enrollment and transfers to academic standing, and schools are responsible for certifying every player on their roster.
The episode is a reminder of how much of the OHSAA tournament runs on paperwork as well as play. Rosters are certified before the postseason, and a single eligibility failure can erase a result after the fact — a rule designed to protect the fairness of the bracket for every other team in it, even when the correction lands painfully on the team that won on the field.
Central Catholic now gets what every playoff team wants and few eliminated teams ever receive: another week. The Crusaders will spend it preparing for Perry, the region’s No. 1 seed and one of the state’s most consistent small-school powers, while also monitoring Bourquin’s health after the rib injury that knocked him out of Friday’s game.
Perry, at 10-0, had expected to host Liberty; instead the Pirates draw a Central Catholic team playing with house money — a group that has already experienced the end of its season once this weekend and has no reason to play cautiously. Games like that are dangerous for favorites, and the quarterfinal now carries a storyline no bracket could have scripted.
The Crusaders’ return adds another chapter to Stark County’s postseason, which continues across the region this week. Our coverage of the opening round included Hoban’s 38-7 rout of Villa Angela-St. Joseph, Revere’s 21-0 shutout of Holy Name and Hudson’s 52-12 win over Euclid.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What we know: the OHSAA ruled Liberty used an ineligible player in Friday’s game, Liberty forfeits its 26-16 win, Central Catholic advances at 7-4, and the quarterfinal at Lake County Perry is set for Nov. 6, all as reported by the Canton Repository. What we’re still waiting on: the specific eligibility issue involved, whether Bourquin will be available for the Perry game, and any statement from Liberty or the OHSAA beyond the ruling itself.
What happens next is straightforward: Central Catholic practices this week as a quarterfinalist, and the Crusaders travel to Lake County Perry on Friday, Nov. 6, with a regional semifinal berth on the line — a game that, 24 hours ago, they had no reason to believe they would play.