The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
STATE TITLE DREAM ENDS IN FINALE
Sophomore Crenshaw rushes for six TDs in D-I state championship game victory
Mentor head coach Steve Trivisonno consoles quarterback Tadas Tatarunas after the Cardinals lost to Pickerington Central, 56-28, in the Division I state final on Dec. 1 in Canton.
CANTON » The Division I state championship remains elusive for the Mentor football team.
Demeatric Crenshaw, sophomore quarterback for Pickerington Central, made sure of that.
A 6-foot-2, 200-pound 10thgrader, Crenshaw ran for 161 yards and six touchdowns, leading Pickerington Central to a 56-28 win over Mentor in the Division I state championship game in front of 12,711 fans at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium.
It is Pickerington Central’s (14-1) first state championship in three tries, while Mentor (13-2) falls to 0-4 in state championship games.
“If I had someone who looked like that, we’d probably run him too,” said Mentor coach Steve Trivisonno of Crenshaw. “We don’t have that, so it’s a little hard to (simulate his skillset in practice). He’s a big, strong kid. We said going in we had to make some plays.”
Instead, it was Crenshaw who made most of them, scoring his team’s first six touchdowns on runs of 6, 3, 1, 10, 1 and 7 yards.
The six scores tied an all-division state final record and broke the Division I title game record set in 2006 by Hilliard Davidson’s Bo DeLande in a 3635 double-overtime win over Mentor.
Coming into the game, Trivisonno likened Crenshaw to Ohio State quarterback J.T. Barrett, something he reiterated after the game.
“Yeah, somebody needs to check his age,” said PC senior Xavier Henderson of his team’s quarterback who scored 13 touchdowns in his team’s final three games. “I don’t know how old he is. He’s amazing and
did great things this year.”
A key momentum shift came on the first drive of the third quarter in a 21-21 game.
Facing fourth-andinches from the PC 3, Mentor went with a play-action pass, which fell incomplete.
Pickerington Central went on a nine-play, 96yard drive for the go-ahead score.
And after the Cardinals punted on their next possession, the Tigers needed only two plays to go 60 yards, taking a 35-21 lead on another Crenshaw scoring run.
Mentor never tied the game or took the lead again.
“It was one of those things where they loaded the box,” Trivisonno said of the crucial fourth-and-goal
call. “We didn’t want to pound it in there. We’ve done well all year getting Tadas (Tatarunas) on the edge and taking a chance. It didn’t go our way.”
Nothing did after that point.
While Mentor did stem the tide briefly on Eli McDougall’s 2-yard run, making it 35-28 late in the third quarter, Crenshaw scored his sixth and final touchdown of the game to make it 42-28.
Jeremiah Wood and Henderson added late scores to put an exclamation point on the game, scores than sent more than half of the Mentor faithful heading toward the exits.
When the clock struck zero, the purple-clad Tigers charged the field in euphoria, ending a game
that was tight as could be at halftime.
“They’re a really good team,” said Tatarunas, who completed 15 of 33 passes for 196 yards in his final game as a Mentor Cardinal. “Crenshaw is a great quarterback who can run or throw the ball. Defensively, we did what we could. But with a quarterback like that, it’s hard to stop.”
The game was close early. After each team scored on its opening drive — Central on a nine-play, 66-yard drive and Mentor on a 11-play, 86-yard drive capped by an 11-yard scoring run by Tatarunas — Mentor gambled and won.
Facing fourth-and-4 from the PC 46, Tatarunas hit a wide-open Steve Baird for a 46-yard score and a 14-7 lead.