LIBERTY CENTER, Ohio — The defending state champions still have not lost. Top-seeded Liberty Center beat No. 9 seed Paulding 45-10 on Friday night, Nov. 6, in a Division VI, Region 22 regional quarterfinal in Liberty Center, extending the Tigers’ perfect season to 11-0 and sending them into the regional semifinals. The final score was reported by both The Columbus Dispatch and the Mansfield News Journal in their statewide OHSAA scoreboards, and High School On SI and MaxPreps listed the same 45-10 result.
For Paulding, the loss ends a strong postseason run. The Panthers arrived in Henry County with a 9-2 record, according to the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s regional quarterfinal pairings, after winning their first-round game at Allen East. Against the region’s top seed, however, Paulding managed only 10 points — and in this region, against this defense, that was never going to be enough to survive the night.
The result continues a season that has been dominant by almost any measure. MaxPreps’ season totals for Liberty Center show 572 points scored and just 84 points allowed across 11 games, with an 11-game winning streak. Those numbers help explain why the Tigers earned the No. 1 seed in Region 22 and a first-round bye — under the OHSAA format announced Nov. 1, the top four seeds in each region sat out the opening round on Oct. 30 and opened their postseasons at home on Nov. 6.
Friday’s quarterfinal was, in that sense, exactly the kind of first test the bracket was designed to produce. Paulding was no soft opener: a nine-win team that had already won a playoff game on the road. Liberty Center handled it by 35 points, the kind of margin that turns a quarterfinal into a statement for the three rounds still to come.
There is also history riding on this run. As the Stateline Sports Network noted in its playoff field synopsis on Oct. 25, Liberty Center is the defending Division V state champion that moved down to Division VI this season, where it took the No. 1 seed in Region 22 with a 10-0 regular season. Champions that change divisions often find a very different bracket waiting for them; the Tigers, so far, have made the new bracket look a lot like the old one.
Region 22 was unusually deep this fall. The Stateline Sports Network pointed out that the region’s field included four 10-0 teams — Liberty Center, Lima Central Catholic, Elmore Woodmore and Collins Western Reserve. By the end of Friday night, that depth had thinned considerably: the Mansfield News Journal scoreboard showed Carey beating Lima Central Catholic 35-13 and Delta shutting out Woodmore 28-0, results The Columbus Dispatch also reported. The unbeaten crowd at the top of Region 22 is down to one — and it is the team that was seeded first.
That reshaped bracket matters for what comes next. On the other side of Liberty Center’s semifinal pairing, Columbus Grove beat Patrick Henry 22-8 on Friday night, a result listed in the Mansfield News Journal’s statewide scoreboard. MaxPreps’ Liberty Center schedule now lists the Tigers’ next game as a trip to Columbus Grove on Friday, Nov. 13, at 7 p.m. — a regional semifinal between two Northwest Ohio programs that both handled their quarterfinals by double digits.
The Nov. 13 date fits the statewide calendar the OHSAA laid out in its Nov. 1 pairings announcement: regional semifinal games are played Friday, Nov. 13, with the higher-seeded team hosting through the first three rounds of the playoffs, and neutral sites beginning with the regional finals on Friday, Nov. 20. One more win puts Liberty Center in that regional final, two wins from a state semifinal berth and four from defending a championship in a new division.
For Paulding, Friday closes the book on a 9-3 season that included a playoff win — a year most programs in Paulding County would gladly take, even if it ended against the region’s standard-bearer. The Panthers scored in double figures against a defense that, per MaxPreps’ totals, has allowed barely a touchdown a game across the entire season, and they leave the bracket having tested the top seed on its own field.
For Liberty Center’s community, meanwhile, November football has become an expectation rather than a surprise. A defending champion, an unbeaten record, a No. 1 seed and now a 35-point quarterfinal win — each week adds another layer to a run that Henry County fans have seen build since August. The Tigers have outscored their opponents by nearly 500 points this season, according to MaxPreps, and Friday showed that gap does not shrink just because the calendar turns to the playoffs.
What happens next is straightforward, and it gets harder. Liberty Center travels to face Columbus Grove on Friday, Nov. 13, at 7 p.m. in the Division VI, Region 22 regional semifinal, per MaxPreps’ schedule listing. Win, and the Tigers advance to the regional final on Friday, Nov. 20, at a neutral site. Lose, and one of Ohio’s last perfect seasons ends a round short of where this program now expects to be. After 45-10, though, the Tigers have given nobody in Region 22 a reason to bet against them.