Season-ending 28-3 rout of Teays Valley
caps 3-0 finish after nightmarish 0-7 start
 
By CRAIG DUNN
for loganfootball.com

LOGAN — A season that began as an absolute nightmare ended in sweet dreams for the Logan Chieftains.

Twenty-one days removed from a disastrous 0-7 start, the Purple & White brought one of the strangest, most-challenging seasons of high school football on record to an end by winning their final three games, capped off by Friday night’s 28-3 rout of visiting Teays Valley in Logan Chieftain Stadium.

“A weaker group of people would have given up a long time ago, but that’s just not who these young men are,” lauded Logan coach Mike Eddy, who concluded his second season at the helm of Chieftain Nation football. “They don’t give up and they don’t quit. They showed up and went to work every day and continued to get coached and continued to play hard.

“It was really (all about) finding something they believed in,” he added. Over the last three games “we started to play a little bit better on both sides of the ball and they started to believe in that that ‘yes, we can run the ball; yes, we can play some defense (and) we don’t have to give up 20-plus-points a week.’”

By Spencer Waugh
for LoganFootball.com
 
The Teays Valley Vikings will look for a fifth straight victory over Logan on Friday night following last season’s dramatic 10-7 win at Logan Chieftain Stadium.
 
Mark Weber, in his seventh season at TVHS, has compiled a 46-24 overall record as head coach while winning five Mid-State League championships and making three playoff appearances at the Pickaway County school.
 
So far this fall the Vikings are 3-5 overall in a season that has been disrupted by postponed games due to COVID-19. The blue and gold opened with wins over Logan Elm (31-25) and Fairfield Union (42-13) before falling to Bishop Watterson (0-39) and Hamilton Township (12-21). The Vikings fell to Kings (41-10) in a replacement game after Circleville had to cancel their league game.
 
TV won its playoff opener against Briggs (68-0) but fell the next week at Anderson (14-52). The Vikings fell to Lancaster (0-24) last week in a regular season game.

By Spencer Waugh
for LoganFootball.com

Maysville makes a return trip to Logan after last year’s dramatic 14-12 Chieftain victory at the Maysville Athletic Complex. The Panthers, from the Muskingum Valley League’s new “Big School” division, enter the game 3-5 overall.

The Panthers opened with a 20-0 non-league win over Crooksville but lost their next four against Tri-Valley (0-35), Sheridan (14-33), John Glenn (0-26), and River View (21-23) before their 43-42 overtime victory against Philo. Despite that win, a rematch with the Electrics the next week in the playoffs resulted in a 43-0 loss. Last week Maysville topped Morgan 42-21.

30-point opening quarter powers Logan to 50-6 rout of Columbus East
 
By CRAIG DUNN
for loganfootball.com
LOGAN — Thankfully, a difficult season in which they’ve had to deal with tragedy, national controversy, injuries and the ongoing COVID pandemic won’t include a winless football season for the Logan Chieftains.

The Purple & White finally broke loose and got a chance to ring the victory bell Friday night as 30 first-quarter points powered Logan to a 50-6 rout of visiting Columbus East in Logan Chieftain Stadium.

Unlike last week, the Chiefs found themselves on the good side of program history as they didn’t attempt an official forward pass for just the sixth time since records began being kept in 1912.

Caden McCarty rushed for 174 yards on 16 carries and scored four times as Logan (1-7) won its first game of the season, and in so doing snapped an eight-game losing streak dating back to the 2019 season finale.

Logan simply dominated a game that was just added to the schedule a few days earlier to fill an open slot on the schedule for both teams (Logan had originally been slated to visit Meigs before the Marauders canceled out) after they were eliminated from the Division II and Division IV playoffs, respectively, last weekend.

By Spencer Waugh
for LoganFootball.com
 
The Columbus East Tigers will make their first trip to Hocking County in 95 years on Friday night and will become one of only a handful of teams to have played the Chieftains at the Hocking County Fairgrounds (1923), Bill Sauer Field (1925), and Logan Chieftain Stadium.
 
The 1925 game was the official dedication for the old Hilltop stadium, known better in later years as Bill Sauer Field. In that game Logan pulled off a 9-0 upset to record the first win at the longtime home of the Chieftains.

East is 2-1 all-time against the purple and white while the Columbus City League is 11-7 all-time against LHS.
 
East’s most-famous football alumnus is no doubt Charles “Chic” Harley, who went on to star at Ohio State. When Ohio Stadium was built starting in 1920, it was on the back of Harley’s success leading to the Horseshoe’s nickname of “The House that Harley Built.” Today the Tigers play their games at Harley Field.
 
Mike Bell is in his first season as the Tiger grid boss. Last season the orange and black were 6-4, their first winning season since 1999.

SUNBURY — There’s really no other way to say it: the Logan Chieftains were on the wrong side of football history Friday night.

Playing in the state playoffs for the first time since 2009 — in this COVID-altered season, all Ohio teams were given the option of playing in the tournament — the Chiefs suffered the worst loss in program history.

Host Big Walnut tallied 48 first-half points and scored on eight-consecutive offensive possessions — as well as getting a defensive touchdown — and routed the Purple & White 62-0 in rural Delaware County.

The record-setting loss eclipsed a 58-0 setback at the hands of Dublin Jerome four years ago and matched the most points ever allowed by a Logan team, dating back to a 62-7 setback at the hands of Columbus West in 1930.

Plain and simple, the winless (0-7) Chieftains were simply dominated.

By Spencer Waugh
for LoganFootball.com
 
The Big Walnut Eagles will make their ninth postseason appearance on Friday night, but first since 2011. The Delaware Countians own an impressive 15-7 postseason mark, including a Division III state championship in 2007 and a regional championship in 2008.
 
First year mentor Rob Page is no stranger to the postseason, having found success while a head coach at Reading High School in Cincinnati and as an assistant at Turpin High School, also in Cincinnati.

Logan nearly wipes out 19-point deficit before falling at Watkins Memorial
 
By CRAIG DUNN
for loganfootball.com
 
PATASKALA — On the surface, you could say all that prevented the Logan Chieftains from their first football victory of the season Friday night was three huge plays by host Watkins Memorial.

It’s certainly easy to say that in retrospect. But in all fairness to the Warriors, you also have to give huge credit to their lockdown second-half defense as well as some costly Chieftain miscues.

The Warriors built a 19-point first-half lead on a fumble return, a 65-yard pass play and an 81-yard kickoff return, then had to hold off a determined rally by the Purple & White to earn a 32-21 victory at Watkins Memorial’s Ascena Field.

Down 19-0 in the early going and 25-7 late in the second stanza, the Chiefs pulled within 25-14 at halftime after Ian Frasure hooked up with Brandon Heft on a 20-yard scoring pass, then closed the gap to 25-21 a little more than two minutes into the third quarter when Caden McCarty blocked a Watkins punt and recovered it in the end zone.

But that defensive score was the only points the Chiefs were destined to get in the second half.

By Spencer Waugh
for LoganFootball.com
 
The Watkins Memorial Warriors will host the Logan Chieftains for the second time ever and the first time in 25 years. In 1995 the two teams played a thriller, with the Warriors topping the Chieftains 30-28. It is the only game played between the two schools.
 
Watkins Memorial, of the Licking County League, is looking to even its record heading into next week’s playoff opener. The Warriors beat rival Licking Heights (40-13) in the second game of the season, and topped Utica (49-13) last week. They opened with a loss to Licking Valley (3-35) and also lost games to Zanesville (13-46) and Granville (9-28).
 
Warrior head coach Jake Kuhner is in his third season at WM after previously serving as head coach at Whitehall-Yearling where he won a Mid-State League title in his last season. A Pickerington High School grad, he was a sophomore when Logan topped the Tigers in a second-round playoff game in 2000.