Olentangy Orange is still alive in the Ohio playoffs after one of the wildest finishes of the first round, rallying from 19 points down in the second half to stun St. Charles 29-26 on Friday night, Oct. 30, in a Division I, Region 3 opener in Columbus, according to The Columbus Dispatch’s first-round takeaways.
The winning play came with just 9 seconds left. Junior quarterback Colby Luling threw a 36-yard touchdown pass to his older brother, senior receiver Jake Luling, capping a comeback that The Columbus Dispatch reported had the brothers fielding congratulations and photo requests for several minutes after the game.
The finish was the second lead change in the final minute. Only 44 seconds before the Luling connection, St. Charles sophomore quarterback Nolan Beyer had found senior Jack Hilbert for a 27-yard touchdown that put the Cardinals ahead 26-22 and appeared to end the Pioneers’ season.
For most of the night, there was no sign of a comeback. St. Charles led 19-0 early in the second half, and the ninth-seeded Pioneers — the defending state champions, per The Columbus Dispatch — looked finished on the road against the eighth-seeded Cardinals.
Orange scored 29 of the game’s final 36 points. Colby Luling and sophomore James Schuh each ran for a 7-yard touchdown in the third quarter to cut the margin to 19-14, and sophomore Jaeyln Berry’s 16-yard score gave the Pioneers their first lead, 22-19, with 4:32 to play, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
That set up the frantic final minute: Beyer to Hilbert for St. Charles, then the Luling brothers answering with the season on the line. Orange improved to 6-5 with the win, a record that says nothing about how dangerous the Pioneers looked over the final quarter and a half.
The game was part of a first round that rewarded central Ohio teams willing to finish. In the same region, Reynoldsburg won 19-15 at Pickerington Central and Pickerington North shut out Groveport 37-0, according to The Columbus Dispatch’s OHSAA scoreboard, while Olentangy Berlin edged Westerville Central 17-10 in Region 3 play.
Comebacks were a theme elsewhere in Division II, Region 7 as well, where Whitehall won its first playoff game in eight years, 33-7 over Hamilton Township, and Canal Winchester outlasted Ashland 43-37, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
Whitehall’s win, also detailed by The Columbus Dispatch, followed a similar script of a team seizing control late. The eighth-seeded Rams, playing their first postseason home game since 2021, scored the final 26 points against Hamilton Township after the game stood tied at 7 late in the first quarter, and their defense opened the second half with Lathan Western’s 32-yard fumble return for a touchdown and a 27-7 lead.
Whitehall’s reward is a Nov. 6 meeting with top-seeded Watterson at Ohio Dominican. Watterson, the two-time reigning state champion in its class, has won 39 games in a row, including the past two state finals, The Columbus Dispatch reported — the same championship pedigree Orange carried into Friday night as a defending champion playing from the No. 9 seed line.
The rest of the central Ohio scoreboard, as reported by The Columbus Dispatch, included Hilliard Darby’s 44-14 rout of Miamisburg, Kettering Fairmont’s 35-21 win over Grove City, Beavercreek’s 24-21 escape against Hilliard Bradley and Westland’s 16-10 win over Toledo St. John’s in Division I, Region 2, plus DeSales’ 56-14 rout of Watkins Memorial in Region 7.
For St. Charles, the loss ends a season in the cruelest fashion — a lead built over three quarters, reclaimed with under a minute to play, and lost again 44 seconds later. The Cardinals’ go-ahead touchdown would have been the story of the night almost anywhere else in Ohio.
Orange, meanwhile, gets at least one more week. The Pioneers advance to the regional quarterfinal round on Friday, Nov. 6, carrying the confidence of a team that has already won a game it had no business winning.
Related coverage: Louisville Beats Hoover 21-7 to Avenge Loss and Win First Playoff Game Since 2015.
What happens next: Orange’s quarterfinal assignment will test whether Friday’s finish was a spark or a one-night escape. Either way, the defending champions’ season continues — because two brothers refused to let it end.
Photo: CarCai, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons