Clyde holds off Ottawa-Glandorf for D-IV regional crown

FINDLAY — All in all, it was quite a good week for young Remington Norman.The Clyde sophomore, given the nickname "Blue" by his sister, earned first-team Northwest Ohio district honors last Wednesday. He capped off the week with a fumble recovery to seal the Fliers' 17-10 victory over Ottawa-Glandorf in the Division IV Region 14 championship game Saturday night at snowy Donnell Stadium."He got the ball and dropped it instantly. It was pretty exciting and it was on my birthday, which makes it a lot better," said Norman, who was serenaded with the refrains of "Happy Birthday" by his teammates on the field following the game.The Fliers also turned interceptions from Carson Rieman, Caden Berger and Chevon Bulger into 17 points."You have to do that to win football games, especially in the state playoffs," said senior quarterback Ryan Lozier. "If you're going to get interceptions, if your defense gets you the ball back, you have to act on that. I feel like we didn't do that in second half as well as we could have, but, hey, we won at the end of the day and that's all that matters."It was the fifth regional title for Clyde and the first in six years. The Fliers — the only No. 8 seed remaining in the playoffs — will play defending Division IV state champion Cincinnati Wyoming, a 33-0 winner over Germantown Valley View in the Region 16 final, on Saturday in the state semifinals in Marysville."This is awesome," said senior back Gunner Golden. "Six years ago today, I was a water boy for our regional championship team that beat Toledo Central Catholic over in Bowling Green. It's kind of crazy, history repeating itself.""We've won this game four times in our history, and tonight we wanted to make it a fifth," said Fliers coach Ryan Carter. "This group got it done,"The Fliers, 9-4 overall, built a 17-3 lead through the first three quarters, but the Titans made things interesting in the fourth."You have to credit them. Their defense came out and played well the whole second half, as did ours," said Lozier, who was 8-of-12 passing for 74 yards and gained 30 yards on 17 carries. "They made some plays, but that's a good football team. When you're in the final eight teams in the state, you're going to be pretty good."Clyde forced O-G into a three-and-out on its first possession of the third quarter, but muffed Ethan Alt's 59-yard punt, with the Titans recovering at the Fliers' 30.An illegal procedure penalty pushed O-G back five yards, but two plays later, senior Jarrod Beach connected with Brennan Blevins on a 35-yard touchdown pass that cut the Clyde lead to 17-10.The Titans had the ball back four plays later after a punt, and drove to the Clyde 15 with less than two minutes left in the game with the help of a pair of fourth-down conversions and a 15-yard pass interference penalty against the Fliers.Blevins was unable to pull down a Beach pass in the back of the end zone on first down. On the next play, Norman jumped on a bad snap and Clyde was able to run out the final 1:39 on the clock."They weren't doing anything differently, their kids were just making plays and we weren't," Carter said. "They had that sense of urgency, but we were able to make some big play down the stretch. Blue Norman made a big play that put them behind the sticks that forced them to throw a little more, which I thought was huge, and then he got the fumble that was big for us."Blue has absolutely made plays like that all year. Blue and Walker (Britt) are two sophomores who have really been the anchors for our defense."The Fliers got off to a puzzling start, thinking they caught O-G with an ineligible receiver on a 28-yard screen pass on the third play of the game, only to have the penalty waved off, setting up the Titans up at the Clyde 35.Rieman picked off starting quarterback Jacob Balbaugh three plays later at the Clyde 10 and the Fliers marched to the O-G 11 before the drive stalled. Victor Guzman-Moreno came on a booted a 30-yard field goal to give Clyde a 3-0 lead.The Titans answered with a 70-yard drive that ended with a game-tying 28-yard field goal from Alt.Midway through the second quarter, Clyde failed on a fourth-and-2 at its 35, but got out of the jam when Berger picked off Balbaugh and returned it 38 yards to midfield. On a third-and-3, six plays later, Nick Webb looked liked he was going to be caught for a loss but reversed his field and raced 30 yards for a touchdown and a 10-3 lead.Bulger's interception of Balbaugh at the O-G 37 in the third quarter ended with a 2-yard Gunner Golden touchdown run and a 17-3 Clyde lead."This is huge and it's all on these kids," Carter said. "They do a great job. They give me everything they have and that's all we can really ask out of them."Golden finished the game with a game-high 96 yards rushing on 17 carries, while Webb had 53 yards on the ground. Rieman hauled in five Lozier passes for 57 yards and Webb added three catches for 17 yards."Not really much changed (in the second half), they just started to play as hard as they could and were shutting us down a little bit," Golden said. "Our defense was on the field a lot of the fourth, but they helped us out a lot and did the job for us. They got the win for us."Hats off to our defense. This is a team sport and everybody had to put out 100 percent. We had to have each and everyone's individual best and I think that's what we did tonight. We put it all together and got a team W."For O-G, Beach finished the game with 49 yards on the ground, caught a pass for 28 yards and was 3-of-7 through the air for 57 yards. Clayton Recker chipped in 56 yards on the ground and two catches for 14 yards while Balbaugh was 3-of-8 passing for 46 yards."This is a dream come true," Lozier said. "We've been dreaming about this since we were real little, especially our senior group. This was our goal way back when, and to finally be able to accomplish it is awesome."——-Ottawa-Glandorf 3 0 0 7 — 10Clyde 3 7 7 0 — 17C—Victor Guzman-Moreno 30 field goalOG—Ethan Alt 28 field goalC—Nick Webb 30 run (Guzman-Moreno kick)C—Gunner Golden 2 run (Guzman-Moreno kick)OG—Brennen Blevins 35 pass from Jarrod Beach (Alt kick)——-Division IV state semifinals(7 p.m. Saturday)No. 1 Cincinnati Wyoming (13-0) vs. Clyde (9-4) at Marysville Impact StadiumNo. 4 Newark Licking Valley (13-0) vs. Poland Seminary (11-2) at Massillon Washington Paul Brown Tiger StadiumRemington Norman (wearing black arm sleeve) is swarmed by emotional teammates Adam Koviak (15), Jack Morrison (center) and Levi Cooper after he recovered a fumble to seal Clyde's 17-10 victory over Ottawa-Glandorf in a Division IV regional championship game Saturday night in Findlay.Clyde celebrates its regional championship in the snow Saturday night in Findlay.Gunner Golden was hard to bring down in the snow in Findlay on Saturday night.Clyde's Gunner Golden (44) and Ryan Lozier (2) shake hands with Ottawa-Glandorf players following the Fliers' 17-10 victory in the Division VI, Region 14 championship game Saturday night in Findlay.