By Mark Hazelwood

NORWALK- Another successful season at home was put in the books Saturday night at Warren Whitney Field in Norwalk Saturday night.

The St. Paul Flyers, firing on all cylinders, blanked the Blue Devils 45-0 in Division VI regional quarterfinal action and move on to play Mogadore (10-1) next weekend at a site to be determined. Mogadore was a 28-7 winner over Warren John F. Kennedy on Saturday.

St. Paul (11-0) went 6-0 at home this season, and have won 21 straight home games and this season's senior class finishes with a 22-1 record at home, the lone setback a 23-12 loss in Week 3 of the 2006 season to Elyria Catholic. Since the program's first playoff appearance in 1995, the Flyers are 76-7 at home in 83 games.

St. Paul led 15-0 after one quarter and 29-0 at the half and never looked back.

The Flyers were paced by senior running back Brian Griffin, who rushed the ball 17 times for 155 yards and three touchdowns.

The St. Paul defense shut-out the Blue Devils high-flying spread offense and held BCWR quarterback Shane Ewing to 10-of-32 passing for 87 yards. BCWR’s standout wide receiver Clayton Hull, who had more than 1,000 yards receiving entering Saturday, was held to one catch for 11 yards.

“They were good,” Western Reserve coach Andy Hake said. “We haven’t seen a team like that all year. They just had a lot of good players all over the place.

“They go man and blitzed and got to us more than they didn’t,” Hake added. “That 86 (Justin Wilde) and 23 (Dan Tracht) were great, but they shouldn’t have shut us down like that. But you just can’t simulate that speed or those athletes in practice.”

The Flyers scored first on a safety when sophomore Isaac Livengood sacked Ewing in the end zone.

St. Paul made it 9-0 on the next offensive play after the free kick when QB Eric Schwieterman bolted around end for 41 yards and a score.

Griffin’s 44-yard TD run made it 15-0 at the end of one.

Griffin added a 2-yard TD run in the second and Schwieterman connected with Wilde on a 19-yard scoring pass with 2:07 to go in the first half.

The Flyers added three third-quarter touchdowns.
Eric Bradt darted in from the 8 and Griffin dashed in from 39 yards out. Jim Roth nailed a 37-yard field goal to cap the hosts’ scoring. Roth also made 4-of-6 extra points.

St. Paul coach John Livengood was pleased with the performance.

“I’m very proud of the kids,” he said. “I didn’t think we could shut them out because they have a great quarterback, a great receiving corps and run a complicated offense. They were very difficult to defend and cause a lot of matchup problems.

“Our defensive coaches did a great job with the game plan and we stayed aggressive,” Livengood said. “We didn’t want to play passive.”

Livengood good praised the play of the offensive and defensive lines.

“We were really balanced offensively and that starts up front,” he said. “I thought it was important to control the line of scrimmage and I thought we did that on both sides of the ball.
“I thought Brian Griffin ran hard between the tackles,” the coach added.

Livengood agreed the safety was big.

“The safety was good for momentum,” he said. “They had forced us to punt and we were able to pin them deep and the safety established some momentum early on. But even bigger was the score on the next drive.”

The day proved to be a double victory for St. Paul as the Lady Flyers advanced to the Division IV state volleyball tournament after defeating Berlin Center Western Reserve in a regional final at Twinsburg.

The Mogadore-St. Paul football matchup might be played on Friday to accommodate the state volleyball tournament, with the Lady Flyers participating.

“It’s our hope we can move the game to Friday,” Livengood said.

Schwieterman added 78 yards rushing to his 59 yards passing. Bradt had 37 yards on 10 tries. Zach Service chipped in 32 yards on nine attempts.