Top-seeded Princeton spent more than three quarters stuck on one of football’s strangest scorelines — and still won going away. The Vikings led Middletown just 5-0 deep into the second half, briefly trailed, then scored three fourth-quarter touchdowns to beat the Middies 27-6 on Friday night in a Division I, Region 4 regional quarterfinal in Sharonville. The final was confirmed by scoreboards published by The Columbus Dispatch, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Mansfield News Journal, the Zanesville Times Recorder, High School On SI and MaxPreps.
Princeton’s 5-0 lead was built the hard way — a safety and a field goal — in a defensive struggle that had fans thinking about a possible “scorigami,” the Cincinnati Enquirer reported in its Week 12 recap. Middletown then scored a touchdown to take a 6-5 lead, but the Middies could not convert the two-point try, and Princeton “eventually returned to form in the fourth quarter,” scoring three times to close out the win, according to the Enquirer.
Jordan Hall led the closing surge with 156 yards and two touchdowns on 18 carries, and Ka’ronn Daugherty returned his first interception of the season 39 yards for a touchdown while Middletown was still within reach — both lines from the Cincinnati Enquirer’s top-performers list. Remarkably, the Enquirer noted, 27 points matched Princeton’s lowest offensive output of the season, set in a win over Lakota West.
The quarterfinal was a rematch of Week 2, when Princeton beat Middletown 28-7, according to the Enquirer’s preview coverage, which also reported that Princeton allowed one touchdown or less in six of its ten regular-season wins. Middletown (7-5) reached Friday by winning 33-15 at Lebanon in the first round, and three of its losses came against the region’s top three seeds — Elder, Princeton and Lakota West.
Princeton, now 11-0, plays at the renovated Jake Sweeney Automotive Stadium, where the Enquirer reported a $22 million project brought new turf to Pat Mancuso Field along with a new field house and press box ahead of this season. The Vikings’ program standard is an old one: Princeton won state championships in 1978, 1983 and 1987.
Friday’s struggle also says something real about Middletown: the Middies held the region’s top seed to a field goal and a safety for more than three quarters and took a fourth-quarter lead on the road, a week after winning a playoff game at Lebanon. Their season ends at 7-5, but three of those five losses came against teams still playing — the mark of a schedule, and a team, that belonged in the region’s final eight.
What happens next is the matchup the bracket has pointed to for weeks: No. 4 Moeller visits No. 1 Princeton on Friday, Nov. 13, in the Region 4 semifinal — a rematch of Princeton’s 31-24 Week 1 win over the Crusaders at Paycor Stadium that the Enquirer billed as a “King of the Block” rematch, in front of what the Enquirer expects to be a sold-out stadium. The other Region 4 semifinal sends St. Xavier to Elder, and the winners meet in the regional final on Nov. 20.