“The relationship we’ve all grown to have it’s not fake,” said Tigers senior quarterback Trevor Woodruff. “We love each other out here, and we fought for each other every single day for however many months — just poured it all out for each other.”
That bond was enough through a 9-1 regular season and two playoff victories. But the Roughriders were more than the Tigers’ closeness could overcome. Running back Gabe Jones was electrifying, his offensive line that averages 286 pounds a man dominated and a tweaked-up defense suffocated the Tigers’ potent offense.
Jones was the game-breaker he has been all season, but his performance was more than is usually seen in a region final. He rushed for 239 of his 289 yards and four of his five touchdowns in the first half. The Tigers knew what to expect. He gained 207 yards and scored four touchdowns the first time they played and entered the game with 2,319 yards on 10.7 yards a carry.
“He’s really good at seeing a sliver and making a jump cut,” Tigers coach Dan McGill said.
Jones’ first score was three-yard dive over the line after a bad start for the Tigers. The Roughriders recovered a pooch kick on the opening kickoff and had to drive only 23 yards.
“The game just started out on a bad note, and it was just tough to get out of that hole,” McGill said.
Late in the first quarter the Tigers thought they had the Roughriders in a hole on fourth-and-17 at the 26, but a pass play gained 25 yards to the one and Jones scored on the next play. He made the next two big plays, a 39-yard dash for a score and 95-yarder around the left end on third-and-seven with 4:29 left in the half.
The Roughriders are more balanced than when they started the season as sophomore quarterback Tyler Buescher has emerged with some 200-yard passing games. But on a windy, snowy night he threw only six passes.
“That’s a really good football team over there, and when they decided to just keep hammering the run game, and even on some of those fourth-and-shorts, it was just hard to stop it,” McGill said.
West Liberty didn’t have visions of shutting down West Jeff’s offense, but they didn’t expect to be shut down. The Roughriders, McGill said, played tighter coverage on receivers, put a spy on running back Holden Nease to limit screen passes and put more pressure on Woodruff than the last time. The Tigers managed just 113 yards of offense and six first downs.
“They came very prepared for what we did and what we had ready for them, but they just played a much harder ballgame than we did tonight,” Woodruff said.
The Roughriders are rolling and will play Ironton in next weekend’s semifinals.
“I don’t think we needed a loss to wake us up,” coach Shawn Buescher said of the earlier loss. “But in hindsight I think that really got us to the point where we were refocused — what do we want to be. Our kids made a commitment, our staff has and here we are.”
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