“Our guys played great,” said Ansonia coach, Adam Hall. “We had a lot of guys go down – we had a lot of young guys step up.”
“We have great kids, they worked hard all year long,” Hall added. “I know I say it every week but it’s true. We’ve never had a team here win 12 games in a season – couldn’t happen to a better group.”
The Tigers took advantage of a 69-yard drive with Zane Henderson carrying from 5 yards out to give Ansonia a 6-0 lead at 5:46 in the opening quarter.
The home-standing Tigers put together a 78-yard scoring drive with Keegen Weiss punching the ball in from one yard out and Nick Burns using a quarterback keeper good for a 2-point conversion run giving Ansonia a 14-0 lead with 9:32 showing on the second quarter clock.
Ansonia moved out to a 22-0 score at 4:49 in the second with Weiss crossing the goal line on a 3-yard TD run and scoring on the 2-point conversion.
Weiss scored his third consecutive first-half touchdown at 2:52 in the second to extend the Tigers’ lead to 28-0. Mechanicsburg answered with a touchdown with 0:43 remaining on the second quarter board and made good on its 2-point conversion sending the teams to the break with Ansonia sporting a 28-8 advantage.
The round two second-half playoff game had one lone score as the team’s defenses dominated play. Burns called his own number scoring from 20-yards out at 7:02 in the fourth advancing Ansonia in playoff action with a 34-8 win.
“We’ve had some injuries coming into this,” Coach Hall noted. “Can’t say enough about all of our guys who were ready to play.”
“Mechanicsburg is a good football team,” added Hall. “To beat them period is a win…to beat them without some of our guys the way we did is a testament to how hard our guys work.”
The Tigers had a total of 455 yards including 441 rushing yards on 65 attempts and 14 passing yards going 1-2 through the air.
Ansonia will take on the St. Henry Redskins, Friday, November 10 in third-round play at Piqua High School with a 7 p.m. start time.
