Heidelberg, Mount Union, Ashland University in football playoffs

By JON KLEINKNECHT

Inquirer Sports Editor

sports@galioninquirer.com

Car­tel Brooks, Alex Nicholls and Jack Nicholls — for­mer foot­ball and bas­ket­ball team­mates at Galion High School — will all be play­ing in the NCAA Divi­sion III Foot­ball Play­offs that open this Sat­ur­day around the nation.

Car­tel — a 2010 GHS grad­u­ate and a sopho­more at Hei­del­berg Uni­ver­sity — is the star player on a 9–1 Stu­dent Princes team that is the first from the Tif­fin school since 1972 to play in the post-season.

The ‘72 Hei­del­berg squad won the national cham­pi­onship and was quar­ter­backed by retired GHS base­ball and foot­ball coach and ath­letic direc­tor Jim Ruth.

The lead­ing rusher (1,299 yards) and scorer (96 points on 16 touch­downs) in the 10-school Ohio Ath­letic Con­fer­ence, Car­tel amassed his num­bers despite not play­ing in the final regular-season game because of an injury.

Hei­del­berg (9–1) — ranked 11th in the nation — will host 24th-ranked Wit­ten­berg (9–1) at Frost-Kalnow Sta­dium in Tif­fin in the first round of the play­offs. Kick­off is Sat­ur­day at noon.

Broth­ers Alex and Jack Nicholls will put on the gear and play for unde­feated and top-ranked Mount Union. The Pur­ple Raiders (10–0) — who have outscored their oppo­nents 517–45 and recorded 6 shutouts — play host to Christo­pher New­port Uni­ver­sity (6–4) on Sat­ur­day in another noon kickoff.

Mount Union claimed its 21st con­sec­u­tive OAC foot­ball cham­pi­onship with a 9–0 league record. Christo­pher New­port — located in Vir­ginia — advanced to the play­offs by win­ning the USA South Con­fer­ence championship.

Alex — 2009 GHS grad­u­ate and a senior defen­sive back — has 21 tack­les, 3 inter­cep­tions and 4 bro­ken up passes this season.

Jack — a 2010 grad­u­ate of GHS — is a junior wide receiver. He’s caught 12 passes for 176 yards and 2 touch­downs this campaign.

In Divi­sion II, Ash­land Uni­ver­sity wrapped up its first unde­feated regular-season since 1972 with a 65–0 pum­mel­ing of Notre Dame Col­lege last weekend.

Ninth-year head coach Lee Owens — who served in that posi­tion at GHS from 1983–86 — led his Eagles (11–0) to the first Great Lakes Inter­col­le­giate Ath­letic Con­fer­ence (GLIAC) foot­ball title in school his­tory and their first berth in the play­offs since 2008.

Ash­land receives a bye in the first round of the tour­na­ment and will play the win­ner of this Saturday’s Chadron State/West Texas A&M con­test. Those two schools are both 9–2. The Eagles will host the win­ner on Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 24th.

Andrew Nicholls — GHS class of 2011 — is a sopho­more wide receiver on the Ash­land ros­ter. He is the cousin of Alex and Jack Nicholls.

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Nov 12 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.