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Barnesville rocks and rolls Lucasville Valley, 40-14

Barnesville's Spencer Bliss (21) breaks a tackle of a Lucasville valley defender Saturday night on the way to one of his three touchdown receptions in the Shamrocks 40-14 victory.

BARNESVILLE — Combining a stingy defense with a balanced offensive attack is a recipe for success.

Barnesville did just that on a crisp Saturday night at Shamrock Stadium as it rolled past visiting No. 13 Lucasville Valley, 40-14, in a Division VI, Region 23 quarterfinal playoff game. The fifth-seeded Shamrocks (6-2) will now travel to Beverly on Halloween Night to tangle with top-seeded Fort Frye (8-0) with the winner moving on to the regional finals.

“Offensively over the course of the game I think we wore them down,” fourth-year Barnesville head coach Blake Allen said. “We finally got our running game going in the second half and we made some big plays off of it that put the game away.

“I’m really proud of my kids.”

The Shamrocks defense yielded 164 yards of total offense and senior A.J. Detling picked off a pair of passes while senior cousins Ayden Hannahs and Gage Hannahs and junior Spencer Bliss sparked the offense.

“The first half was a battle … a dogfight. We had a lot of miscues and mistakes, but man, I really thought we stepped it up in the second half,” Allen said. “It was a very good effort overall by our defense.”

Allen was absolutely correct. Neither team was able to sustain any offensive movement in the first 24 minutes.

Barnesville got a 1-yard touchdown run from Ayden Hannahs to make it 6-0 after the two-point run failed, but the Indians (4-5) grabbed a 7-6 advantage on a 3-yard run by George Arnett and Chase Ruby’s placement.

The Shamrocks would reel off 26 unanswered points to put the game away.

Ayden Hannahs finished with 170 yards passing and three touchdowns. He also scored twice on 1-yard sneaks.

“He’s a special player. He was banged up early on but he is healthy and we are a much better team with him out there and fully healthy,” Allen said of his quarterback.

Gage Hannahs, who was bottled up in the first half by the Indians, eclipsed the 100-yard barrier on a 50-yard touchdown run that capped the scoring. He ended with 127 yards on 17 carries.

“Gage is Gage,” Allen said. “He didn’t have much luck in the first half but he continued to run hard and good things can happen when you do that,” Allen allowed.

Bliss caught five passes but three of them went for touchdowns. His six-point grabs were from 33, 50 and 7.

“Spencer is another kid who has worked his tail off. I don’t know what his numbers were but he had a huge game,” Allen continued to hand out kudos. “When people key on Gage we can go to Spencer.”

AJ Detling came up big on defense with a pair of interceptions, one coming in the end zone to thwart an Indians scoring attempt.

“For four years this kid has given us everything he has,” Allen said of A.J. Detling, a 5-7, 140-pound outside linebacker. “He’s always in the right spot. He does what he is coached to do. I’m very happy for him stepping up and making plays. They had a great receiver and A.J. made a couple of good plays on him.”

Lucasville Valley got an 80-yard kickoff return from Ty Perkins in the fourth quarter.

“We’ve still got some things to work on, especially on special teams,” Allen allowed.

Allen was also very pleased with the work of his offensive and defensive lines.

“It all starts up front and our offensive line played well as did our defensive front,” Allen noted. “Overall, I thought we played pretty good.”

The offensive line consists of Luke Schultz, Jadyn Lucas, Justin Jackson, Jacob Starr and Quinten Leasure. Converted lineman Gavin Carpenter was used as a lead blocker. Defensively, the front four are Starr, Schultz, Carpenter and Lucas. Junior Connor Jones also had his name called a handful of times at linebacker.

Of Lucasville Valley’s 164 yards of total offense, 126 of that came on the ground. The Indians were flagged 15 times for 126 yards.

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