Maxwell Lee, Tayvion Galloway
Derrick Webb

Derrick Webb

Derrick is SOSA's chief content coordinator and has worked for the Chillicothe Gazette, the Portsmouth Daily Times and Eleven Warriors. He's a 13-time award-winning journalist, a self-proclaimed baseball purist, a suffering Bengals fan and has never met a stranger.

Chillicothe uses early scoring flurry to top Tigers, get back in win column

The Cavaliers are now 8-0 all-time against the Tigers.

Derrick Webb, Staff Writer

Southern Ohio Sports Authority is presented by OhioHealth.

WAVERLY — How a team chooses to respond often reflects its identity.

Chillicothe’s Mason Doughty threw for 109 yards and a touchdown in a 42-12 win over Waverly on Friday.
CREDIT: Derrick Webb/SOSA

After a hard-fought three-point loss to Westerville North last week, Chillicothe had a choice to make. The Cavaliers could either let that loss linger or choose to look towards the future.

Without a doubt, they chose the latter.

Behind a flurry of big plays and a smothering defense, Chillicothe (3-1) marched into Waverly on Friday and returned home with a 42-12 victory in the two’s first meeting since 1935.

“Waverly is a great program and they’re well-coached,” Bartholomew said. “But I just felt like we’ve been ready to explode. We’ve been tested but we just haven’t put it all together. The defense got a couple of short fields for us, we capitalized early offensively and that gave us momentum and a lot of confidence.”

The win had Maxwell Lee’s fingerprints all over it. 

The Cavaliers’ senior tailback and linebacker carried the ball 12 times for 112 yards and three touchdowns while flying — seemingly — everywhere on the defensive side and helping Chillicothe’s unit hold the Tigers (2-2) to just 164 yards of total offense.

“Max is a high school football player,” Bartholomew said. “He’s good on the defense, he’s good on the offense and he’s a leader. He’s a very mature kid and we’ve had some good talks about how to operate as a senior, and he’s soaked those in. That’s a big plus for him. He’s got the maturity to handle constructive criticism and just continues to get better.”


PHOTOS: Images from Chillicothe’s win over Waverly


Chillicothe’s Oscar Morgan got the night’s scoring started with a one-yard touchdown plunge at the 7:59 mark in the first quarter to cap a nine-play, 60-yard scoring drive. Then, following a botched punt attempt that gave the Cavs the football at Waverly’s 39-yard line, Lee scored his first touchdown of the evening with 4:55 to go from a yard out, pushing the lead to 14-0.

Waverly was forced to punt again and, after a three-and-out, Lee found paydirt from 12 yards out to make it a 21-0 game — a score that was set up by a 52-yard pass from Mason Doughty to Aaron Valentine.

The Tigers finally found the end zone with 10:01 to go in the second when Jase Hurd pummeled his way past the goal line from a yard out, cutting the deficit to 21-6 after an errant snap on the PAT attempt.

However, 90 seconds later, Chillicothe’s Caden Eblin hooked up with Coen Butler for an 84-yard touchdown pass to push the advantage back to three scores at 28-6.

“It was tunnel vision all the way down [the field]. I knew I had to score,” Butler said. “It’s fun, especially when the offense is out there a lot. That gives our defense a little bit of a break. We play our butts off.”

Waverly answered with a second one-yard touchdown run from Hurd at the 6:10 mark in the second, putting a capper on a 10-play, 60-yard drive. However, Chillicothe countered with 2:18 left on a three-yard touchdown toss from Doughty to Tayvion Galloway to make it 35-12.

The second half began with Chillicothe forcing a three-and-out. The Cavaliers followed that up with the final score of the night, a 17-yard rushing score for Lee with 5:55 remaining in the third.

From there, with a running clock in effect, Bartholomew’s team put a bow on a 30-point win.

“[The defense] has played well for us all year long,” Bartholomew said. “We’re still working on some little things and brushing those up. But they’re doing a great job.”

Doughty finished 11-of-17 passing for 109 yards and a touchdown while Morgan had nine rushes for 33 yards and a touchdown, Butler logged the 83-yard touchdown catch, Valentine finished with 52 receiving yards and Galloway tallied five catches for 46 yards and score.

Hurd led the Tigers with 22 carries for 85 yards and two touchdowns while Mason Kelly finished 10-of-20 through the air for 80 yards. Wyatt Crabtree was Waverly’s leading receiver with 29 yards on four receptions.

The Cavaliers will go to Logan next week while the Tigers travel to Johnson Central (Ky.).

“The pace of practice last week was better for us,” Bartholomew said. “Our pace is important to me. We’re not always playing well, but we’re playing hard. If we play hard, the well will come. When you can practice hard, you’re getting where you need to go. They’re starting to realize that. We’ll just continue to work on ourselves.”

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