Mentor and Pickerington Tied at Half in High School Division I Title Game

By Corey Perez

Speed. Speed. Speed. When the Mentor Cardinals and Pickerington Central Tigers kicked off Friday night, it was quite obvious these two teams could run with one another.

Each team came out running as the Tigers scored on their first possession via a 6-yard run from dual-threat quarterback Demeatric Crenshaw. Mentor knew what the Crenshaw was capable of as he was the leading rusher for the Tiger offense.

The Cardinals took no time scoring a touchdown of their own as Mentor had a nice balance of run/pass on their opening possession before quarterback Tadas Tatarunas has his own touchdown run.

Pickerington Central was unable to duplicate their success experienced on the 1st drive, as they fumbled on their second play of the drive. The Cardinals capitalized off the Tigers mistake 4 plays later as Tatarunas connected to senior WR Steven Baird for a 46-yard touchdown.

The bad luck for the Tigers continued on their next series as they managed to march down the field until Crenshaw tossed a 50/50 ball into the endzone that Mentor’s Logan Shea came down with for the touchback.

Mentor wouldn’t be able to make the Tigers pay for this mistake as they began experiencing their own turnover issues. Two Cardinal fumbles allowed for two Crenshaw touchdown runs, which also meant a 21-14 Pickerington Central lead.

Mentor would settle themselves down to finish out the half, similar to the way they begun the game, as Tatarunas again scored on a QB keeper. That takes us into halftime all knotted at 21.

Mentor
Rushing:
Eli McDougall 9-58
Tadas Tatarunas 2 TDs

Passing:
Tadas Tatarunas 10-15 147 yards TD

Receiving:
Steven Baird 4-69 TD
Logan Shea 3-55

Pickerington Central
Rushing:
Xavier Henderson 7-41
Demeatric Crenshaw 11-39 3TDs

Passing:
Demeatric Crenshaw 3-6 44 INT

Receiving:
Trenton Gillison 1-19
Jereimiah Wood 1-13