Meridian, East Butler to meet for title
Meridian and East Butler, both sporting 6-1 records, will play for the Butler Area Midget Football League championship at 7 p.m. Oct. 22 at Art Bernardi Stadium.
Meridian and Center Township will meet in the BAMFL junior varsity title game at 4:30 p.m. at the stadium.
First-round playoff results follow:
Varsity
Meridian 44, Center Township 8 — Alec Bayer tossed a 9-yard touchdown pass to Jacob Surkosky to get Meridian on the board. Cameron Lovach ran for the conversion. The lead reached 14-0 by halftime as Tony Marzullo scored on a 3-yard run.Kelly Kuharic scored on a 49-yard run and a Dave Friedt interception set up Kuharic’s 5-yard TD run. Marzullo’s conversion run hiked the lead to 28-0.Center Township (0-7) got on the board when Adam Hohn connected with Caleb Baxter for a 68-yard touchdown pass. Michael Cuadro added the conversion. Marzullo’s 19-yard run and Kovach’s conversion gave Meridian a 36-8 lead by the end of the third quarter.Kovach scored on a 4-yard run and added the PAT run in the fourth period to close out the scoring.
East Butler 30, Butler City 28 — Jake Trinkley’s 75-yard run set up his own 1-yard scoring run to get East Butler on the board first.Brandon Selfridge ran 10 yards for a Butler City TD on fourth down in the second quarter. A Selfridge conversion run gave Butler City (2-5) an 8-6 halftime lead. That margin expanded to 16-6 when Selfridge scored from 8 yards out and added the conversion run in the third quarter.Brandon Hilderbrand scored on a 5-yard run for East Butler and Trinkley added the conversion run. But Butler City countered again, Tyler Coppersmith running in from 5 yards out for a 22-14 lead.Trinkley scored on a 65-yard run on the game’s next play and Hilderbrand’s conversion run knotted the game at 22. Again, Butler City responded, Ethan Hicks returning the kickoff 89 yards to paydirt and a 28-22 lead with 4:43 remaining.Hilderbrand scored on a 35-yard run after recovering a teammate’s fumble and Trinkley scored the tie-breaking conversion run with 1:23 to play.Junior varsity
Center Township 40, East Butler 0 — Jack Gagen and Nathan Delano scored two touchdowns each for CT. Landon Pringle added a touchdown while Brandon Fleeger and Nash Bryan scored on conversions.
Meridian 40, Butler City 0 — Cole Thompson scored two TDs, Braydon Thomas, Vince Slomers and Jared Kramer one each. Kramer, Thomas, Jacob Wolfrum and Drew Rouda tacked on conversions.From staff reports
