WAPAKONETA — Two points were all that separated survival from the end of the season Friday night, and Wapakoneta got them. The Redskins edged Parma Padua 14-12 in a Division III, Region 10 quarterfinal, a final confirmed on the statewide scoreboards published by The Columbus Dispatch, the Zanesville Times Recorder and High School On SI.
Wapakoneta, the region’s No. 4 seed, hosted the game after earning a first-round bye with a 7-3 regular season, according to the OHSAA pairings published by the Canton Repository. The Redskins had not played a postseason game yet this fall, which made Friday a test of whether rest or momentum would matter more against a Padua team that had already won once on the road in these playoffs.
Padua arrived as the No. 12 seed with a 5-6 record but plenty of confidence. The Bruins pulled one of the first round’s biggest upsets on Oct. 30, going to Copley and beating the No. 5 seed Indians 35-13, Kee On Sports reported. That win sent Padua to Auglaize County believing another road upset was possible, and for four quarters Friday the Bruins stayed within a single score of making it happen.
A 14-12 final tells its own story about how the night went: long drives, defenses answering in big moments and almost no margin for a mistake. Neither team could build the kind of cushion that decides most November games early, and the Redskins’ defense had to protect a two-point lead — the slimmest possible edge that does not require a conversion or a safety to explain it — against a Padua offense that had scored 35 points a week earlier, according to the Kee On Sports first-round report.
The win moves Wapakoneta to 8-3 and keeps its season alive in one of the state’s most balanced regions. In the other Region 10 quarterfinals Friday, top-seeded Celina routed Richfield Revere 41-10, Ontario held off Tiffin Columbian 22-19 and St. Marys Memorial beat Lodi Cloverleaf 42-21, The Columbus Dispatch’s statewide scoreboard reported. Every surviving team in the region has now won at least one playoff game by a single possession except Celina.
Padua’s season ends at 5-7, but the Bruins leave the bracket with a road playoff win and a two-point loss at a top-four seed to show for their October turnaround, results recorded on the MaxPreps tournament bracket. For a No. 12 seed, that is a postseason run that will be remembered in Parma long after Friday’s cold final minutes in Wapakoneta.
What happens next is the hardest trip in the region. Wapakoneta travels to No. 1 seed Celina on Friday, Nov. 13, for a regional semifinal, while Ontario hosts St. Marys Memorial in the region’s other semifinal, the Mansfield News Journal reported. The Redskins proved Friday they can win a tight, low-scoring playoff game at home; at Celina, they will likely need that same defensive edge for four more quarters.
[…] playoff run continues alongside the rest of the region’s November football, including Wapakoneta’s 14-12 win at Padua and Celina’s 41-10 rout of Revere in the neighboring Division III […]