HOBAN QUICKLY MOVES ON TO NEXT ROUND
By Ty Bartell
AKRON OH- It is little to no secret, when you look at highschool football playoffs in the state of Ohio, no team rocks Region 5 quite like The Archbishop Hoban Knights! Coming off another successful regular season at 9-1, The Knights rolled into the playoffs as the #1 seed in Region 5 and were looking to make it back to Canton. The team standing in their way for the first round? A fellow team from Akron, The Ellet Orangemen who were 3-7 in the regular season. Despite this being a mismatch on paper, there is always intrigue when two Akron schools go against one another because there is no fear, only respect amongst the squads.
Hoban opened up the scoring in the first quarter when Tylan “Juice” Boykin connected with senior wide receiver Jalen Hightower from 14 yards out, giving Hoban the initial 7-0 advantage with 6:43 left in the first quarter. The Knights Defense would then pitch in with some scoring of their own, recording a safety less than a minute later, at 6:06 left in the quarter to go up 9-0. Back on the offensive side, The Knight got it working on the ground when Deon Rodgers broke the plane with a 4-yard rushing touchdown with 4:12 to go in the opening quarter.
The second quarter continued with much of the same from Hoban, who executed a beautiful drive that ended with a 13-yard strike from Juice Boykin to Tayte Crable for a touchdown, another made extra point by Ryan Burns and The Knights were up 23-0 with 6:34 left in the half. A little over two minutes later, Boykin was tossing dimes again, this time a 30-yard find to Elbert Hill IV, pushing The Knights lead to 30-0 prior to halftime. Brayton Feister kept Hoban’s offense working in the second half when he punched it through the endzone from a yard out, extending The Knights lead further to 37-0 with 7:43 left in the third. From the point of the Feister touchdown, neither team would score for the remainder of the third.
Hoban would add a couple more points to the board when their defense recorded their second safety of the game, with 11:37 left in the fourth, giving the Knights a commanding 39-0 advantage and continuing to enforce the running clock. Not going to be disrespected with a goose egg, The Orangemen’s KeyShawn Staphens recovered a Hoban fumble and returned it 55 yards to the house to get Ellet on the board with 10:20 left in the game. That would be the final score as The Knight salted away the rest of the clock to walk out of the first round 39-7 winners over Akron Ellet.
The win for Hoban (10-1) now sets them up with the #8 seeded Barberton Magics (7-4) on Friday, November 3rd at Dowed Field of Archbishop Hoban High School, slated for a 7 p.m. start time. Do not forget to keep updated with all Archbishop Hoban athletics scores, stats, stories and more on YSN
