LORAIN, Ohio — Coming out of a timeout with just over three minutes remaining in Friday’s game, with the ball at the Columbia 2-yard line, Clearview trailed by four but was just six feet away from maintaining its perfect season on a drive that had torn up the Raiders’ defense.
As Raiders players stood with their hands on their hips wondering how the Clippers were able to finally break through for a big second half drive, Columbia head coach Mike Rice needed one of his guys to step up in that moment.
The Raiders’ unlikely hero, in what would become a 22-18 Columbia win, came in the form of a junior who hadn’t played defense all season, but came up with a season-defining stop in the biggest game of the year.
After a stop on second down pushed the Clippers back to the 5, Jimmy Stofey came tearing in off the edge on a blitz that would change the course of the game and possibly the season for the Raiders.
“It’s the first time that I’ve played defense all year and actually had a job, a serious job, to do and it worked out,” Stofey said. “I played corner at the beginning of the year and got moved, because I wasn’t doing great, just straight up.
“We’ve all come a long, long, long way. And just me, I’ve been focusing on my job all week and just really being locked in unlike I was at the start of the year.”
Stofey’s big play backed the Clippers to the 10-yard line, and after a desperation heave with the Raiders bringing the pressure, the Raiders’ offense took over for a couple of kneel downs to complete the win.
The win keeps the Raiders (6-2) in the hunt for a Lorain County League title and avenges as an upset loss to the Clippers (6-1) from last season.
As he watched his team celebrate, Rice said he was just happy for Stofey to step up in a big moment and see a reward for all his hard work.
“Jimmy’s come a long way on the defensive side, I know he was frustrated at the beginning of the year and wanted to be out there more and to his credit he’s kept his mouth shut, done what we’ve asked him to do and been a team player,” Rice said. “(He) earned his way back out on that field. All credit to him and his mentality.”
On the offensive side of the ball, it was the Raiders’ run game that pushed the team up and down the field with senior quarterback Gage Maruna leading the option offense.
Junior tailback Jose Rivera joined in the action for the game’s first score on the opening drive of the game for a 6-0 lead after a failed 2-point conversion attempt.
Clearview responded with a short score from senior J.G. Hill to even things up 6-6 seconds before the conclusion of the first quarter.
Both offenses stayed stagnant for much of the second quarter, but with halftime looming the Clippers got into gear and worked the ball into the Raiders’ side of the 50. Senior quarterback Cy Christensen made his presence felt from the pocket with just over two minutes remaining in the half with a pinpoint pass to sophomore Tyler Chapman for a 12-6 advantage.
A blundered kickoff gave the Raiders a short field to work with as time was becoming a factor. Maruna made a couple of key plays and got his team in the red zone with time to spare that set up a short score for the quarterback.
A successful 2-point conversion sent the Raiders into the locker room with a lead (14-12) they would not surrender.
Opening up the second half with a long march to the end zone, it was once again Maruna that fought through the Clippers’ defense for a 22-12 lead.
“Coming into this game, we knew they were going to make some big plays, so we just had to step it up on defense,” Maruna, who plays both sides of the ball, said. “We had to step it up on defense, we had to stop them, we had to make big plays and we had to throw the first punch coming into the second half.”
The rest of the game fell on the defense, which has been a strong suit for Rice’s team all year.
“It really went into what we talked about all week – go out and earn it,” Rice said. “I thought in other big games this year we’ve made just too many mistakes and we needed to deserve to beat this team. There’s no way they were gonna allow us to win the game because they’re a well-coached team, they’re a very good team and we had to go out and earn it.
“I think that’s what we leaned on there at the end when it’s first-and-goal and we have to make a stop, we got a big play on third down on the sack by Jimmy Stofey and Coach (Chris) Bucher did a great job down there getting aggressive when we didn’t have a lot of field to defend.”
The reason the Clippers are currently 6-1 with seven games played through week eight is because of week four cancellation due to the threat of violence with Keystone scheduled to be at Tom Hoch Field.
After Friday night’s game, the threat of violence became very real. Police descended upon the high school as a fight broke out just outside the entrance to the stadium as parents, students and media left through the gates.
Next week, the Clippers will travel to Black River as Columbia hits the road to Brookside.
