'Incredible balance' leads Harvest Prep football back to OHSAA state semifinals
The bar for success has been set high for Harvest Prep football, considering the Warriors entered this season with three regional championships since 2016.
Coach Milan Smith has thought for a while that this year’s team could be as good as any of them, just not in the same way.
“What makes this team a little different than some of my teams in the past is our identity is so team-oriented,” Smith said. “We’ve had guys like Isaiah Mullens, Daniel Bangura and Jaylen Jennings, and those guys are great players and were good for our program. But sometimes you get teams like this. …
“There isn’t one area of our program that is so dominant that if that area gets stymied, we struggle. We’ve been ultra-productive and a lot of that has to do with the incredible balance we have.”
Despite a relative lack of eye-popping stats, Harvest Prep (12-1) enters Friday’s Division V state semifinal against Perry (14-0) at Shelby averaging 34.4 points per game to complement a defense that has given up more than two touchdowns only once all season.
A win would put the Warriors into their first state championship game.
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With no featured running back, sophomore quarterback Dezmond Porter is the leading rusher (135 carries, 1,142 yards, 13 touchdowns). Junior Lenny Wicks Jr. (98 carries, 874 yards, 8 TDs) and senior Marchello Cox (58 carries, 527 yards, 3 TDs) are other top contributors, and senior E.J. Pierce — who shares time at quarterback with Porter — has 380 yards and eight scores on 81 carries.
“We go into every game and (defenses) don’t know who to key on,” said Wicks, who played at Westerville South a season ago.
Harvest Prep has rushed for 3,393 yards and passed for 1,222.
Top receiver Chris Brown, a senior, has 39 catches for 979 yards and nine scores.
It is a different formula from the earlier state semifinal teams of 2016, 2019 and 2021.
The first of those boasted Bangura, who finished his high school career as Ohio’s all-time leader in rushing yards (9,634) and career touchdowns (133), and two-time all-state linebacker Mullens. They went on to play at Kent State and Wisconsin, respectively.
Jennings shouldered the rushing load for the 2021 team. He rushed for 2,825 yards his junior and senior seasons before signing with Bowling Green.
“We don’t look at one guy as being the best,” said Porter, who also starts at middle linebacker. “We key on everyone doing their jobs and doing the best they can. It makes it easier. It makes me calmer, knowing the guys have my back. If I can’t make a play, they can.”
Friday’s winner will play Germantown Valley View or Liberty Center in the state final Dec. 1 at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton.
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Harvest Prep is 0-3 in state semifinals, including a 28-22 loss to Versailles two years ago.
That loss still stings for some of this year’s veterans, including Cox, a three-year starter.
“We were so focused on the state championship that we overlooked the team we were playing and that caught up to us,” he said. “We didn’t focus on what was in front of us. (This year), we just told ourselves we’d grind, practice harder, focus and just go one game at a time. That’s how you get this far.”
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Harvest Prep football preps for Perry in Division V state semi
