Only two seniors on the Streetsboro Rockets’ football team were starters as sophomores when the Rockets’ season ended in the first round of the 2022 Ohio High School Athletic Association Division IV Region 13 playoffs in a loss against Northwest. That game still stuck with the current Rockets’ senior class, who avenged their previous loss against the Indians by dominating them 34-7 in the OHSAA Division IV Region 13 quarterfinal last Friday night at Rockets Stadium’s Quinn Field.
“You can’t go back in time and redo anything,” said Coach Pete Thompson. “This is a different version of the Northwest team so this week we did not talk about the past so much as what is here in the present for us.”
The victory marked a milestone moment for Streetsboro (12-0, 7-0), as they finished their home schedule by posting a 7-0 record and also reached 12 wins for the first time in school history. It is also the first time in the eight-year coach’s career that any of his teams have reached 12 victories.
The Rockets will face 2023 OHSAA Division V state champion Perry in the Division IV regional semifinal at Great Lakes Cheese Stadium in Burton to compete for an Elite Eight berth on Friday night at 7 p.m.
As far as Thompson is concerned, the Rockets are taking everything in stride.
“We will take it,” he said. “We are 12-0 on Friday night and on Saturday we are 0-0 again. For me right now, it means we have another week. All we earned on Friday night was the opportunity to be together as a team for at least seven more days,”
Despite a sloppy start highlighted by penalties, the Rockets held a commanding 20-0 lead near the end of the second half. They had a chance to widen their lead after the defense forced a second turnover on downs from Northwest but penalties stalled the drive, forcing Streetsboro to punt the ball back to the Indians with 30 seconds remaining in the half.
Northwest’s attempt to trim Streetsboro’s lead was halted when junior wide receiver/defensive back Manny Gibson intercepted senior quarterback/defensive back Chase Badger at the Rockets’ 40.
“It was a heck of a play,” noted Thompson. “Manny is a heck of an athlete and it was an interception to stop their drive. Unfortunately, we only had 15 seconds at that point.”
Although the Rockets did not score, they preserved their 20-point lead heading into the half.
Senior quarterback/defensive back Cohen Klimak acknowledged that holding a 20-point lead did not guarantee the Rockets anything, evidenced by the way Cardinal Mooney trimmed the Rockets’ 20-point advantage to a one score game in the opening round of the playoffs on Nov. 1.
“The game still felt close,” he said. “They started to tighten up on defense and switched their front. They went from an even front to an odd front on the second-to-last drive but when we realized that, we went into the half and were able to adjust.”
The Rockets’ defense continued to stiffen on fourth down, earning another turnover on downs on Northwest’s opening drive in the third quarter. Just like the previous two times, Streetsboro made the Indians pay for another failed fourth down conversion, marching down the field on a five-play, 35-yard drive capped off by a 17-yard touchdown run by Gibson, pushing Streetsboro’s advantage to 27-0.
In a game where every possession was critical, the Rockets’ capitalized on four Northwest turnovers on downs by scoring a touchdown on the ensuing drive each time.
“That’s what you have to do,” Klimak said. “In playoff football especially, you cannot allow big plays and a lot of these big plays happened on fourth down. On those short fourth downs, we did a great job tightening up and just realized where the sticks were and stayed tight to our man, so it was a really good job.”
After stopping the Indians on another fourth down on its 23, Streetsboro delivered the dagger by engineering a seven-play, 77-yard touchdown drive capped off by a one-yard touchdown run by Klimak, his third of the game, pushing the Rockets’ lead to 34-0 to trigger the running clock in the fourth period.
Klimak said as much as the seniors wanted this victory to make up for their playoff loss two years ago, it was just as much for the now graduated juniors and seniors who played on the 2022 Streetsboro squad.
“We did it for them but also did it for ourselves and how hard we worked all year,” he said. “It did not matter what team we played on Friday night, we had a little extra fuel because we do not want this to be over yet.”
