The upset of the night in Northwest Ohio belonged to the Carey Blue Devils. No. 7 seed Carey went on the road Friday and stunned unbeaten No. 2 Lima Central Catholic 35-13 in a Division VI, Region 22 regional quarterfinal played at Lima Shawnee, a final score confirmed by the Columbus Dispatch, the Mansfield News Journal, High School On SI and MaxPreps. Carey improved to 8-4, while Lima Central Catholic’s season ended at 10-1.
Few saw it coming. Lima Central Catholic entered the night 10-0 and, according to a Swank On Sports preview, had won its previous three games by a combined score of 122-0. Carey, meanwhile, arrived at 7-4 — but battle-tested, having opened its season 0-2 against strong competition before finding its form in the Northern 10 Athletic Conference.
Carey’s defense owned the night, and nobody owned it more than Joe Reinhart. The Carey standout finished with three sacks and lived in the Thunderbirds’ backfield, earning game MVP honors from The OH Report, which broadcast the game. A Lima Central Catholic offense that had shut out three straight opponents was held to 13 points.
Reinhart credited the schedule that hardened the Blue Devils early. “It does more for us to go 0-2 and play two really good teams than to play two nobodies and beat them by 40,” Reinhart told The OH Report after the game. Per The OH Report’s account of the interview, Reinhart also credited the week’s preparation, saying Carey’s defensive staff had the Thunderbirds’ tendencies diagnosed and the defensive line executed a scramble drill built for Lima Central Catholic’s mobile quarterback.
The two teams arrived by very different roads. Carey played its way into the quarterfinal with a 37-27 first-round win over Sherwood Fairview on Oct. 30, while Lima Central Catholic sat out the first round on a top-four seed’s bye, according to the OHSAA’s pairings release. On Friday, the team with the extra game — and the extra edge — was the one still standing at the end.
It was also Carey’s second straight win of this postseason — and the program’s biggest in years. The Blue Devils, who finished the regular season 7-4, have now won twice in this postseason, and they did the hardest part on the road Friday against an unbeaten No. 2 seed playing minutes from its own campus. For a Wyandot County community that lives its fall Fridays around the Blue Devils, the 22-point win over a Lima power will be talked about for a long time.
Carey’s win was part of a decisive night in Region 22: Liberty Center rolled past Paulding 45-10 and Columbus Grove beat Patrick Henry 22-8 in the region’s other quarterfinals, according to the Dispatch and Mansfield News Journal scoreboards. What happens next for Carey is a Region 22 semifinal on Friday, Nov. 13 against Delta, which shut out Woodmore 28-0 — the pairing shown in the bracket listings published by the Columbus Dispatch and VirtualBoxScore, with the OHSAA’s official semifinal pairings and site confirmation still to be posted.
Photo: Mbrickn, CC BY-SA