Eagles to host Cougars in regional opener

Big Walnut’s Tyler Beam fires a pass dur­ing a game ear­lier this sea­son. Beam and the rest of the Golden Eagles are slated to take on Beechcroft in Friday’s Divi­sion II regional quar­ter­fi­nals. (Gazette | Lenny C. Lepola)

GARY HENERY

Sports Writer

For the eighth time in 12 years, the Golden Eagles are back in the OHSAA foot­ball playoffs.

Fourth-seeded Big Wal­nut (8–2) will host fifth-seeded Colum­bus Beechcroft (9–1) in a Region 9 quar­ter­fi­nal game Fri­day night at 7:30 at Golden Eagle Stadium.

“Beechcroft is a solid team that plays in the Colum­bus City League,” third-year Golden Eagle head coach Joe Weaver said on Mon­day. “They have offen­sive weapons all over the field, they are aggres­sive on offense and will attack up front.”

Coach Bruce Ward’s Cougars, who come into the game rid­ing an 8-game win­ning streak, aver­aged 35.8 points per game, scor­ing 42 or more points four times, includ­ing a season-high 69 in a 69–0 win over Colum­bus Cen­ten­nial. The Golden Eagles scored 41 or more points four times, includ­ing 42 in vic­to­ries over Delaware Hayes (42–13) and Mount Ver­non (42–0), and aver­aged 31.8 points per game with 318 points in 10 starts.

Defen­sively, Weaver reported the Beechcroft defend­ers, like their offen­sive coun­ter­parts, will attack.

“They just keep com­ing after you and attack … they love to swarm to the ball,” he said.

The Cougar defense posted four shutouts, lim­it­ing oppo­nents to 14 or fewer points in nine games. In Beechcroft’s lone loss, Wat­ter­son scored 7 touch­downs in a 42–14 vic­tory in the Cougars’ sec­ond game of the sea­son. For the year, Beechcroft’s defense allowed 125 points, an aver­age of 12.5 per game. The Golden Eagle defense allowed 177 points, a 17.7 per-game aver­age, sur­ren­der­ing a season-high 34 points twice — in a 35–34 win over Olen­tangy Orange and in a 34–31 loss to New Albany.

Big Wal­nut enters the 2011 play­offs with a 14–6 post­sea­son record — a mark which includes a 2007 Divi­sion III state cham­pi­onship, a Divi­sion III state semi­fi­nal show­ing in 2008 and three trips to the regional finals (2001 and 2006 in Divi­sion III, and 2010 in Divi­sion II).

Beechcroft has reached the OHSAA play­offs 14 times in foot­ball, includ­ing a 5-season run from 1999 to 2003. Beechcroft and Big Wal­nut met pre­vi­ously in the post­sea­son in 2003 in a Divi­sion II Region 10 first-round game, with the pre­vi­ously unde­feated Golden Eagles drop­ping a 28–23 deci­sion to the Cougars.

Beechcroft’s last appear­ance came in the 2008 sea­son when the Cougars lost to Colum­bus Marion-Franklin 34–28 in two overtimes.

“The team is excited about the oppor­tu­nity of hav­ing another week to play,” said Weaver, who led the Golden Eagles to the Divi­sion II regional finals last sea­son. “Our upper­class­men have play­off expe­ri­ence … and they are very con­fi­dent going into Fri­day night.”

The Beechcroft-Big Wal­nut win­ner will face the win­ner of the first-round game between top-seeded Colum­bus Marion-Franklin and eighth-seeded Colum­bus Brookhaven on Fri­day, Nov. 11, at 7 p.m. at a site to be determined.

Posted by Gary Henery on Nov 2 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.