One year after the Ohio High School Athletic Association removed them from the playoffs altogether, the Ironton Fighting Tigers opened their postseason return with a statement. Top-seeded Ironton blanked No. 9 seed Ridgewood 42-0 on Friday night in a Division V, Region 19 regional quarterfinal at home in Ironton — a final reported identically by The Columbus Dispatch, the Ironton Tribune, the Zanesville Times Recorder, the Mansfield News Journal, High School On SI and MaxPreps.
Ironton improved to 10-1 with the win, its first playoff game after earning the region’s No. 1 seed and a first-round bye, the Ironton Tribune reported. Ridgewood, which traveled roughly three hours from West Lafayette for the second straight week after winning 49-6 at Fairland in the first round, according to the Zanesville Times Recorder, finished its season 7-5.
The shutout was at least Ironton’s fifth of the season. The Ironton Tribune reported earlier shutouts of Williamsburg, Bloomington South of Indiana, Harvest Prep and Gallia Academy during a regular season whose only blemish was a 47-40 overtime loss to Big Walnut. The Tribune dubbed the campaign the Fighting Tigers’ “Redemption Tour” in its season-opening report — a framing rooted in the program’s turbulent 2025.
That backstory is official record: in an Oct. 25, 2025 news release, the OHSAA removed Ironton from the 2025 football playoffs for numerous violations of its recruiting bylaws over seven years, imposing a 2025 postseason ban, a postseason suspension for some coaching staff members in 2026, three years of probation and a $7,500 fine. The association did not strip Ironton’s 2024 Division V state championship, which the school retained.
No scoring summary or individual statistics from Friday’s game were published in the sources reviewed, and no postgame quotes were available — the result itself, confirmed six ways, is the story: a program barred from last year’s tournament is two wins from a state semifinal. Ironton’s Friday also set up a familiar neighborly showdown, after Wheelersburg’s 44-0 shutout of South Point in the region’s other half of the bracket.
The rest of Region 19’s quarterfinal round was just as decisive: No. 2 Fort Frye shut out Piketon 37-0 and No. 3 Columbus Academy edged Worthington Christian 23-21, according to the Columbus Dispatch and Ironton Tribune score lists. Ridgewood’s loss also closed the Generals’ ninth straight season with at least one playoff win, a streak the Zanesville Times Recorder noted after their first-round victory.
What happens next: No. 5 Wheelersburg visits No. 1 Ironton on Friday, Nov. 13, at 7 p.m. in the Region 19 semifinal, with the winner advancing to the regional final on Nov. 20. The other semifinal pairs Fort Frye against Columbus Academy, both winners on Friday night, according to the Dispatch’s scoreboard.
Photo: Vasiliymeshko, CC BY 4.0 — downtown Ironton.