photo by: Andrew Grimm

Big Red quarterback Aiden Davis fires a pass on a roll out during Friday’s Divison III, Region 11 championship game against Bishop Watterson at New Philadelphia’s Woody Hayes Quaker Stadium.

NEW PHILADELPHIA – When two good teams meet on the gridiron, a few big splash plays that swing the momentum can make all the difference.

Friday night, most of those such plays went the way of Bishop Watterson.

Watterson, the top-ranked team in Division III for most of the season, scored on a 68-yard run, a fumble return for a score and a punt return for a score on the way to topping Big Red 37-7 in the Region 11 championship at Woody Hayes Quaker Stadium.

The regional title tilt was a meeting of the top two seeds in the region and the No. 1 and No. 3 ranked teams in the division by the Ohio Associated Press’s final poll.

Watterson (14-0), with the win, advances to the state semifinals next week. Big Red drops the curtain on another strong season at 13-1.

“It just wasn’t our night,” Big Red head coach Reno Saccoccia said. “Our kids fought, I’m proud of the way our kids fought and I appreciate the way our coaches prepared.

“When you have a team with players like we had, it starts with the parents and I appreciate the parents, the school administration, it takes a village to do this and our village is the City of Steubenville. We didn’t represent them very well tonight, but over the last 40 years I feel like we have and they’ve supported us in a first-class manner.”

The punt return score, a 49-yarder by the Eagles’ Cal Mangini in the second quarter that made the score 20-7, was the last of the three key plays and the one that seemed to turn the tide in Watterson’s favor for good.

The Eagles, who led 14-0 after the first quarter, added a field goal before the half to make it 23-7 at the break and stopped Big Red on a fourth down and goal to end a long opening drive of the second half.

From there, Watterson’s Zack Weber (193 yards on 22 carries) added a pair of scores to put things away. He opened the scoring with the 68-yard scoring run on the third snap of the game for the Eagles and finished with three scores on the night.

“I think the turning point in the game was the punt return,” Saccoccia said. “That was a killer before the half. Our opening drive of the second half was a great drive, we just didn’t put it in. Up until that point we were in the game.”

After Weber’s long scoring run opened the scoring, Watterson’s Tommy Haley returned a Steubenville fumble into the end zone to quickly make it 14-0.

In the second quarter, a break went Big Red’s way when, after a Ryan Bise sack stalled the Eagles, the Watterson punter had to drop down to corral a low snap and his knee hit the turf, giving Steubenville the ball at the Eagles’ 26.

On a third down and goal from the 12, Big Red senior QB Aiden Davis (12 of 21, 129 yards) dropped a well-placed ball to Jeremiah Hinton just inside the goal post to put Steubenville on the board.

The defense got a stop right after, but a good Watterson punt pinned Big Red deep and the subsequent Steubenville punt resulted in Mangini’s big return.

After getting stopped on the opening drive of the second half, Big Red lost another fumble to end what was another promising drive in the third quarter and Watterson ground it out the rest of the way with Weber.

Friday’s game was the final one in Crimson and Black for a successful group of 18 Steubenville seniors.

“Our seniors were great,” Saccoccia said. “That’s the only word I can use to describe them is great. We appreciate them and everything they did for the program. You can tell how they were raised by the way they gave everything they had, that comes from home.

“We coach them up, but their parents bring them up. We appreciate them all.”