HANNIBAL, Ohio — The No. 1 seed never saw it coming. Fourth-seeded Monroe Central went on the road and stunned unbeaten, top-seeded River 43-14 on Friday night, November 13, in an OHSAA Division VI, Region 23 semifinal, according to the Mansfield News Journal’s statewide scoreboard. The Columbus Dispatch’s scoreboard and High School On SI’s statewide scoreboard both confirmed the 43-14 final, and MaxPreps’ River schedule records the Pilots’ loss by the same score.
Seeds are supposed to mean something in the third round. River was 11-0, playing at home, and had beaten Fredericktown 49-34 in its quarterfinal, according to MaxPreps. Monroe Central was 8-3 — and none of it mattered. A 29-point win, on the top seed’s field, is not an upset that needs a fluke to explain it; it is a changing of the region’s guard in a single night.
Monroe Central’s tournament form has been building for two weeks. The Seminoles routed Newcomerstown in the quarterfinal round, according to MaxPreps’ game recap, and their regular season included a 39-0 shutout of Toronto and a road win at Cameron, per MaxPreps’ season record. Friday’s win at Hannibal is the program’s most convincing of the year, and it lands the Seminoles in the regional final at 9-3.
River’s season ends at 11-1 — an unbeaten regular season and a quarterfinal win, undone in one night by the region’s hottest team. The Pilots are the second No. 1 seed in the region’s recent memory to learn that November in the Ohio Valley belongs to whoever is playing best at the end, not whoever was seeded best at the start.
The final pairs Monroe Central with the team it watched win the region’s other semifinal the same night: Garaway, which won at Waterford 29-25. NewsForce247’s coverage of that game, Garaway Beats Waterford 29-25 to Reach Regional Final Against Monroe Central, was published earlier today — and its headline now reads as a schedule: the Pirates and Seminoles, the region’s two most convincing semifinal winners, meet for the championship.
No play-by-play account of Friday’s semifinal was published by the sources used for this story, so this report does not invent one. The verified record — the score, confirmed by three scoreboards and MaxPreps, the seeds, and the season context — is enough: the region’s No. 1 seed lost at home by 29, and its conqueror is one win from the state semifinals.
What happens next: Monroe Central (9-3) faces Garaway (10-3) in the Division VI, Region 23 final on Friday, November 20, at a site the OHSAA announces on Sunday, November 15. The winner advances to the state semifinals on November 27.
Photo: Bwsmith84, CC BY