Perkins stayed perfect on Friday night, sailing past Bellevue 42-14 in a Division IV, Region 14 regional quarterfinal in Perkins Township. BCSN’s report carried the headline “Perkins Sails Past Bellevue 42-14, Stays Undefeated En Route To Regional Semis,” and the final was confirmed by scoreboards published by The Columbus Dispatch, the Mansfield News Journal, the Zanesville Times Recorder and High School On SI.
The Pirates, the region’s No. 3 seed, entered at 10-0, according to the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s published quarterfinal pairings, and improved to 11-0 with the win. Bellevue, the No. 6 seed at 8-3 entering the night, according to the OHSAA pairings, finished its season 8-4.
No scoring summary or individual statistics from Friday’s game were published in the sources reviewed, and no postgame quotes were available — the confirmed story is the result itself and what it sets up: an unbeaten-versus-unbeaten regional semifinal between two programs that have not met in nearly half a century.
That matchup was set on the other side of the night’s bracket, where Shelby rolled past Firelands 42-3 to reach 11-0. The Mansfield News Journal’s Shelby recap reported that the Whippets will host Perkins on Nov. 13 and that it will be the first meeting between the two teams since 1979.
Perkins Township’s Pirates have been Erie County’s standard all fall — an unbeaten regular season, the region’s No. 3 seed behind only Ottawa-Glandorf and Shelby, and now a 28-point quarterfinal win over a Bellevue team that won eight games of its own. The 42-14 margin was the Pirates’ statement that their perfect record was no product of a soft draw: Bellevue arrived 8-3 and left with its season over.
Region 14’s other semifinal sends Clear Fork, a 38-0 winner over Otsego on Friday, to top-seeded Ottawa-Glandorf, which beat Medina Buckeye 28-14, according to the Mansfield News Journal’s statewide scoreboard. The winners of the two semifinals meet in the regional final on Nov. 20.
What happens next: Perkins travels to Shelby on Friday, Nov. 13, at 7 p.m. for a spot in the Region 14 final — 22 combined wins, zero combined losses, and a first meeting since 1979. For Bellevue, an eight-win season closes in the quarterfinal round for a program that spent the fall in the region’s top half.
Photo: Andre Carrotflower, CC BY-SA 4.0 — East Water Street in downtown Sandusky, in Perkins’ Erie County.