CINCINNATI — Anderson does not do close playoff games this November. The top-seeded Raptors routed No. 5 seed Troy 50-7 on Friday night, November 13, in an OHSAA Division II, Region 8 semifinal, according to TriStateFootball.com’s Week 13 Blitz report. The Cincinnati Enquirer’s scoreboard and The Columbus Dispatch’s statewide scoreboard both confirmed the 50-7 final.
Senior quarterback Owen Scalf was in command from the start. Scalf completed 21 of 28 passes for 289 yards and three touchdowns and added 58 yards on the ground, TriStateFootball.com reported, in a game Anderson controlled on both sides of the ball.
The numbers behind the rout are becoming Anderson’s November identity. The Raptors have scored 108 points in two playoff games, TriStateFootball.com reported, starting with a 58-28 win over Withrow in the quarterfinals. A week ago, the Enquirer’s preview noted, Scalf threw for 425 yards and five touchdowns against Withrow and entered the semifinals with 3,524 passing yards and 43 touchdowns on the season.
Anderson is headed to its fifth straight regional final, TriStateFootball.com reported. The Raptors (11-1) have won the last three regional championships and will play for a fourth in a row on November 20 — a run of sustained excellence that now spans a full senior class’s career from first regional final to last.
Troy’s season ends one round earlier than the Trojans hoped. Troy entered as the No. 5 seed at 10-2, with a defense the Enquirer described in its preview as steady, allowing 16 points per game. Friday, against the most productive offense left in Region 8, that defense gave up 50 — more than three times its season average — and Troy’s offense answered with only one touchdown.
The regional final will be an all-local affair. Harrison beat Trotwood-Madison 20-13 in the other Region 8 semifinal on Friday, according to the Enquirer’s scoreboard, setting up a championship game between two Greater Cincinnati-area programs on November 20.
Across the river of southwest Ohio results Friday, the night’s other headliner was a thriller rather than a rout, as covered in Princeton Outlasts Moeller 40-36 on Late Torbert-to-Torbert Strike. Anderson and Princeton are now the last two unbeaten-in-the-playoffs powers standing in southwest Ohio’s top two divisions, and both play for regional titles next Friday.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on: the Region 8 pairing is set, Anderson against Harrison, but the site is not. The OHSAA will announce regional-final sites on Sunday, November 15, according to the association’s bracket schedule reported by the Canton Repository. What is also settled is the form line: Anderson has outscored two playoff opponents 108-35.
For a statewide sense of the company Anderson keeps, the Raptors’ 50-point night matched the kind of dominance shown by the state’s other top seeds Friday, including the program covered in Massillon Blanks Big Walnut 21-0 to Avenge Playoff Losses, Reach Regional Final. November’s third Friday is when good teams separate, and Anderson separated early and completely.
Scalf’s season now stands as one of the finest by a Cincinnati-area quarterback in recent years: more than 3,800 passing yards and 46 touchdown passes through 12 games, counting Friday’s three scoring throws, by the Enquirer’s and TriStateFootball.com’s reported totals. Troy knew what was coming — every defense in Region 8 has known for two years — and it did not matter.
If there was a question after the quarterfinal round, it was on the other side of the ball. Anderson allowed 215 yards on the ground in the 58-28 win over Withrow, the Enquirer noted in its semifinal preview, and a Troy team built on a steady defense figured to test whether the Raptors could win a lower-possession game. Friday’s answer was on the scoreboard: Troy scored once all night, and Anderson’s defense produced its best outing of the playoffs in the round where the opponent was supposed to be hardest to put away.
The stakes next week are the ones Anderson has played for all season. The Raptors entered the semifinals hoping to move one step closer to a third straight trip to the state finals, the Enquirer reported in its preview, and only Harrison — a 20-13 winner over Trotwood-Madison on Friday — now stands between Anderson and the regional championship game that has become the program’s annual appointment.
What happens next: Anderson (11-1) faces Harrison (10-2) in the Division II, Region 8 final on Friday, November 20, at a site the OHSAA announces Sunday. A fourth straight regional championship would send the Raptors back to the state semifinals on November 27, one win from another trip to Canton.
Photo: Wikiphotoman777, CC BY-SA