Cardinal vs. Berkshire football: Badgers earn CVC share, possible home playoff game with win over Huskies

Oct. 21—You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone on the Berkshire football team who was alive the last time the Badgers won a league title in 2005.

You'd have an even harder time finding someone from Burton who has been part of a league championship team that qualified for the playoffs the same year because — well — that's never happened.

Until Friday night.

Paced by a six-touchdown night by junior quarterback Miles Miller — four rushing and two passing — Berkshire hammered rival Cardinal, 50-20, in front of a standing-room-only crowd at Great Lakes Cheese Stadium.

The win clinches a share of the CVC Valley Division title for Berkshire (7-3, 5-1) along with Hawken and Harvey, while also strengthening the Badgers' bid for a home playoff game next weekend. Berkshire had already clinched a Division V playoff berth prior to the Oct. 21 showdown.

Oh, and perhaps most importantly of all — if you ask the players — they brought home the Kinsman Cup by drubbing their fiercest rival.

That's quite a trifecta.

"This is awesome," Miller said. "We could only dream of this. The past three or four years, we've been mediocre at best. It was time to take it to the next level."

All of the Badgers did that, but no one more so than the electric 11th-grade quarterback. He had touchdown runs of 5, 12, 3 and 1 yards, as well as touchdown passes of six yards to Josh Brown and 34 yards to Mason Mendolara. It was part of a night in which he completed 12 of 18 passes for 176 yards and ran 21 times for 139 yards.

"Stop 12 and stop 8," Cardinal coach Chris Perrotti said of the game plan to control Brown and Miller. "Easier said than done, obviously."

Not that Cardinal didn't try. After an errant snap on a punt gave the Huskies the ball at point-blank range, with Logan Strever scoring one play later, Cardinal had a 6-0 lead.

Even when Brown returned the ensuing kickoff 86 yards to the house, Cardinal answered right back with a Josh Soltis touchdown run for a 13-7 lead.

But that's about as good as it got for the Huskies, who finished the regular season 5-5 but have already qualified for the D-VI playoffs.

Two Miller touchdown runs and a touchdown pass to Brown, sandwiched around a 59-yard fumble return by Neil Lucariello, gave Berkshire a 28-20 lead at the break.

Come the second half, Berkshire dominated. A defensive stop, followed by a Miller 3-yard run made it 34-20. Forced to throw the ball more than it would have liked, Cardinal's offense stalled and the Badgers tacked on two more scores to turn it into a running clock game.

"Momentum is such a factor in this game, especially in a rivalry game," Badgers coach Josh DeWeese said of his team's second-half stops on defense. "If you give them a breath, they'll take more. (Stopping Cardinal's run game) was the goal. We came out and executed."

Berkshire's 416-yard offensive output was supplemented by Brown's seven catches for 95 yards. Jason Phillips (10-47) and Elijah Southern (4-44) ran the ball well, too.

"Miles is a special player. He has a knack for the game and a knack for pressure moments," DeWeese said. "Couple that with Josh Brown, couple that with Elijah Southern, Justin Phillips coming downhill and Johnny Heiden, it makes for a very dynamic offense with him at quarterback."

Cardinal's 272-yard offensive night was led by Josh Soltis' 141 yards on the ground.

"One block here or one block there could have changed the focus of the game," Perrotti said.

Despite the loss, Perrotti said his team looked forward to a playoff game next week. The Huskies will be on the road. Official pairings come out Oct. 23.

"These guys have earned that," he said.

So have the Badgers, bringing home a trifecta that has never happened in the same season in program history — a league title, a playoff berth and a Kinsman Cup victory that gives Berkshire a 35-34-1 advantage in the all-time series.

As House of Pain's "Jump Around" blared from the loud speakers at Great Lakes Cheese Stadium, the players and students did just that.

"A CVC title is great," Brown said. "We've never earned something like that. It's always great to get to the playoffs and get an extra game my senior year, so I'm excited."