Canton McKinley 36 - Hoover 29

November 03, 2012

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McKinley tops Hoover to set up Massillon rematch

Josh Weir, Canton Repository

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​NORTH CANTON  Two players, above all others, stood out in the Federal League this season.

​And Hoover’s Dom Iero and McKinley’s Eric Glover-Williams put on shows Saturday night in a Division I, Region 2 high school football quarterfinal at Memorial Stadium.

​But when the lights were shining brightest, it was the dog-nasty McKinley defense that proved to be the difference. The Bulldogs turned Hoover away on the Vikings’ final four possessions and Glover-Williams did the rest in a see-saw 36-29 win.

​McKinley registered six sacks on the final four possessions — five on the hobbled Iero, playing on a badly injured ankle. Glover-Williams rushed for 241 yards and four touchdowns on 33 carries.

​A leaping interception by Chris Prowell-White ended Hoover’s penultimate chance, while Antoine Miles dropped Iero near midfield with 1:15 left to punch McKinley’s ticket to the next round.

​The Bulldogs (8-2) get a rematch with Massillon next week in a regional semifinal at a site to be determined.

​McKinley picked off Iero twice and sacked him 10 times overall, led by Miles, lineman Jalen DiCenzi and linebacker Jamal Davis.

​“That was the strategy of the game,” Davis said. “We knew he was banged up. We just wanted to get every kind of hit on him we could. He’s a great player.”

​Hit him they did, sometimes too late. McKinley was whistled for numerous roughing-the-passer penalties on its way to 12 penalties overall.

​A couple of roughing calls in the second half were questionable, drawing the ire of McKinley head coach Todd Filtz.

​“It is what it is,” he said. “We’ve overcome that stuff all year. This team is full of fighters.”

​Iero looked like he was playing on one leg early after being injured last week. The senior eventually got comfortable and completed 15 of 31 passes for 258 yards and three touchdowns. He added one rushing TD.

​“It was hard to tell he was banged up,” Filtz said. “He’s a competitor.”

​Hoover’s Luke Grandjean caught six passes for 114 yards and one TD, while Austin Feinberg caught four passes for 70 yards and two TDs. Sam Woods made plays in all three phases, typifying the effort of an 8-3 team that rejuvenated a program after consecutive 3-7 finishes.

​“I’ve coached 28 years and I’ve never been more proud of a team,” Hoover head coach Don Hertler Jr. said. “… We got beat by a little better football team tonight.”

​Iero’s TD passes of 45 yard to Feinberg and 42 yards to Grandjean had the Vikings up 29-21 late in the third quarter.

​Enter the electric sophomore Glover-Williams.

​Three plays after Terrance Burt’s long kickoff return set up McKinley in Hoover territory, Glover-Williams made at least three Vikings miss on a 36-yard TD run. His 2-point run tied the game at 29-29.

​McKinley’s defense quickly got the ball back in his hands, and Glover-Williams quickly made it pay dividends.

​He jetted through a tight hole, ran through a couple of arm tackles and was gone for a 67-yard touchdown that had McKinley up 36-29.

​He tweaked his hamstring on the play, and Hoover still couldn’t catch him from behind.

​“Eric was in a zone running the football,” Filtz said. “… When he’s in that mode, we want the ball in his hands.”

​Both teams looked jittery early. There were three combined turnovers before a first down was converted. McKinley committed three straight offensive penalties at one point, then threw an interception.

​But soon, both one-dimensional offenses got going and started trading scoring punches. McKinley’s Jarrod Smith ran for 107 yard and a TD on 21 carries as part of the Bulldogs’ 346 rushing yards as a team.