Kenston vs. Mayfield football: Bombers rally with late touchdown to beat Wildcats, 28-21

Oct. 21—With just over seven minutes left to play in the fourth quarter, Kenston thought its hopes for the playoffs were fumbled away when visiting Mayfield recovered a loose ball.

After the Wildcats drove down the field and tied the game on a two-yard touchdown run, the Bombers' offense needed a short memory if they wanted to win their game.

Senior Nikko Georgiou composed a drive that chewed up three minutes and had back-to-back big completions, the latter being for a touchdown, that gave Kenston the lead again. The defense was able to finish the job and Kenston walked away with a 28-21 victory in a WRC game on Oct. 21.

Kenston finished the regular season 7-3 while Mayfield fell to 6-4

Mayfield got the scoring started with a 10-yard strike from Rocco Monastero to Bo Lewis. After that it was all Kenston. Georgiou connected on a pair of touchdown passes that were both over 60 yards to Tymir Cardona and Sean Patrick that gave the Bombers the lead.

Patrick tacked on another score from one yard out on the ground to make it a two-score game. Yet even with the lead, Kenston coach Jeff Gurbich knew they weren't out of the woods.

"We have to find ways to finish drives," Gurbich said. " We struggled with that tonight and had a couple of opportunities where I felt like we could've put the nail in the coffin. We didn't quite do that and I need to make sure that we can do that."

The Bombers had a pair of possessions end with a turnover on downs as well as two fumbles that saw Mayfield recover both.

Then in the third quarter, neither team was able to generate any momentum and flew by. Georgiou knows that if the Bombers were going to finish the job, they needed to find a way to get back in the end zone.

"Our offense struggled and we made a lot of mistakes," Georgiou said. "We'll look at the film, see what happened and get coached up. Mayfield came out with a totally different defense than we had seen on film and the intensity was a big thing for them tonight."

But while the offense took time to find its footing, the defense held strong in the first three quarters. The Bombers recorded multiple turnovers on downs, as well as four interceptions in the contest.

One of those came from Patrick, who let his hands do the talking against a Wildcats defense that was hellbent on stopping the Bombers' rushing attack.

"I put an emphasis on that in the offseason and at practice to be a more dynamic player," Patrick said. "I can't just be a running back that can just run the ball. I have to be able to have a deep route tree and be able to catch the ball when thrown my way."

But then Mayfield seemed to crack the code. After its defense forced a turnover on downs, the offense slowly began to march down the field until Monastero found Nick Biega for a 32-yard score that made it a one-possession game.

Then a fumble recovery by Mason Ash gave Mayfield the ball at the 50 and a handful of plays later, Anthony Santoro punched it in from two yards out to tie the game.

Georgiou then went to work as he drove the Bombers down the field before he loaded up a 40-yard connection with Cardona. Then two plays later, it looked like the quarterback was looking for him again on a double move but had mistimed the route. But Thomas O'Brien had other ideas. The senior receiver stopped on a dime and came down with the reception and followed a Cardona block to the end zone that gave the lead back to the Bombers.

"I've always believed that big-time players make big-time plays," Georgiou said. "Thomas O'Brien made a hell of a play and that was the big-time play we needed. I was happy to see him score to finish the game."

It was then on the defense to find an answer to stopping the Mayfield offense that they couldn't in the past two drives. While the Wildcats were able to get the ball inside the Kenston 30, the Bombers' secondary prevented them from getting any further, including picking off the final heave to end the game.

Both Kenston and Mayfield now await their opponents in the first round of the OHSAA playoffs.