GALLOWAY, Ohio — Toledo St. John’s Jesuit saw its season end Friday night, Oct. 30, falling 16-10 at Galloway Westland in a Division I, Region 2 first-round playoff game, according to the first-round scoreboard published by The Columbus Dispatch.
The Titans entered as the region’s No. 11 seed at 4-6 and close the year 4-7. Westland, the No. 6 seed, improves to 8-3 and moves on — and in a region where Toledo Whitmer and Perrysburg hold two of the top three seeds, St. John’s was the Toledo area’s hard-luck story of opening night: close enough to win in the fourth quarter, but short at the end.
Six points was the difference in a defensive game that stood in sharp contrast to the shootouts elsewhere in Region 2 on Friday. Hilliard Darby beat Miamisburg 44-14 and Beavercreek edged Hilliard Bradley 24-21, according to The Columbus Dispatch scoreboard, while Westland and St. John’s ground through the lowest-scoring game in the region’s first round.
How the Titans got here. St. John’s path to the playoffs ran through one of Ohio’s toughest schedules. Under the OHSAA format announced Oct. 25, the top 12 teams in each region qualify and seeds 5 through 8 host the first round, according to the OHSAA pairings release. The Titans’ 4-6 record still earned the No. 11 seed — a reflection of the computer points a Toledo Catholic League schedule produces — and a trip to a 7-3 Westland team that had earned its home game.
For three-plus quarters, the matchup looked like a mis-seeding. A St. John’s defense that spent the regular season trading scores with some of Northwest Ohio’s best offenses held Westland to 16 points, well below what a home favorite expects in the opening round, and gave its offense a chance to steal the game late.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on. What we know: the final score, the seeds, the records and the bracket consequences, confirmed on The Columbus Dispatch scoreboard and the OHSAA pairings. What we’re still waiting on: the official scoring summary and individual statistics, which had not been published by the schools or the OHSAA as of early Saturday. NewsForce247 does not report individual scorers it cannot verify, and this story will be updated when the box score posts.
Northwest Ohio’s opening night was otherwise a strong one. NewsForce247 covered Anthony Wayne’s 42-21 win over Toledo Start and Bellevue’s 48-0 shutout of Highland on Friday, and Toledo Whitmer and Toledo Central Catholic both enter the bracket next week off first-round byes as No. 1 seeds in their regions.
Westland’s reward for surviving is the region’s toughest road trip. The Cougars advance to play at No. 3 seed Perrysburg (9-1) in the regional quarterfinals on Friday, Nov. 6, according to the OHSAA pairings — a Perrysburg team that had the bye week to rest and prepare while Westland was fighting into the fourth quarter against St. John’s.
For St. John’s, the offseason questions start with how a team that hung with an 8-3 playoff winner on the road rebuilds its offense. The Titans scored 10 points Friday and finished the season with seven losses, but six of them came against playoff-caliber competition — the kind of schedule that either hardens a young roster or wears it down, and Friday’s fight suggests the former.
The loss also closes the book on a Toledo-area first round that sorted the region’s contenders quickly. Whitmer, the No. 1 seed in Region 2, and Perrysburg, the No. 3 seed, both waited through byes, while Toledo Central Catholic sat atop Division II, Region 6. St. John’s was the area’s only Toledo school asked to win on the road Friday just to survive — and for most of the night, the Titans played like they might do exactly that.
What happens next: Westland (8-3) travels to Perrysburg on Friday, Nov. 6, for a 7 p.m. regional quarterfinal, with the winner moving on to the Region 2 semifinals. St. John’s turns to winter sports and an offseason built around a defense that ended the year playing its best football.
NewsForce247 will keep following Northwest Ohio’s surviving teams — Whitmer, Perrysburg, Central Catholic and Anthony Wayne among them — through the regional rounds.
Photo: Chris4rockets, CC BY-SA 4.0