Tri-Valley rides momentum into secound round of playoffs

DRESDEN, Ohio – It wasn’t the prettiest of wins, but Tri-Valley battled back last Friday to beat Marion-Franklin and advance to the second round of the playoffs.

The 10-1 Scotties will now get ready for a regional semi-final matchup with Bellefontaine. Like Tri-Valley, the Chieftains finished the regular season 9-1. They demolished Graville in their first playoff game 55-28.

Scottie head coach Justin Buttermore knows they’ll have to key in on Bellefontaine’s gunslinger, Dezmin Lyburtus

“They have a terrific quarterback. He’s probably as good as we’ve seen all year. A duel-threat run-pass kid that makes them go. They’ve got some good pieces and good players and they spread you horizontally and vertically, but he’s the kids that makes them go. He’s really dangerous and the reason they score 50 points a game,” said Buttermore.

Tri-Valley was close to not advancing to the second round. They trailed Marion-Franklin in Columbus 12-7 at halftime. They went down by 11 points after the Red Devils scored on a pick six to start the second half. But senior quarterback Andrew Newsom ran for three second half touchdowns, four in total, to help lead the Scotties to a 27-18 win.

Coach Buttermore said he was proud of the way his team rallied to come back to keep their season alive.

“Our kids, to their credit, still had the belief that we could win. We’ve had some teams, even our better teams, that really struggled when they go down because they were so used to leading games,” said Buttermore.

Tri-Valley’s all-time playoff record now sits at 9-9, meaning a victory would put them over the .500 mark.

Friday’s game between Tri-Valley and Bellefontaine will kickoff at 7:30 p.m. from Westerville Central High School. You can hear live play-by-play of the game on Highway 103 Radio.