Friday’s game
Who: Division III-Region 10 football quarterfinal, Talawanda (7-3) vs. Wapakoneta (10-0)
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: Harmon Field, 400 W. Harrison St., Wapakoneta
Playoff history: Talawanda is 1-2 in two appearances (1991, 2000); Wapakoneta is 2-6 in six appearances (1986, 1996, 2000, 2006, 2011, 2013)
It’s been a charmed run that Talawanda High School’s football team would love to continue.
The Braves (7-3) won their last five games and got some unexpected help to slip into the eighth and final spot in Division III-Region 10, earning the school’s first playoff berth since 2000.
“By midnight Friday, my phone was blowing up,” third-year THS coach J.D. Vonderheide said Monday morning. “It hasn’t stopped since. It’s unreal. It’s hard to get work done when everybody is congratulating you, but it’s a good thing. It’s way better than the alternative.”
Talawanda will head to Wapakoneta on Friday to face the top-seeded Redskins (10-0), who will be making their seventh postseason appearance.
The Braves have been a playoff unit just twice before, splitting with Princeton (a 24-22 win) and Centerville (a 34-33 loss) in Division I in 1991, and losing to Piqua (54-33) in D-II in 2000.
Vonderheide was a redshirt freshman player at Miami University the last time Talawanda advanced to the postseason.
“I hardly knew there was a Talawanda High School,” he admitted.
The current Braves aren’t worried about the history and the fact that the program has savored just one playoff victory.
“I just don’t think that’s a big factor in this group,” said senior Mason Fox, a center and nose guard. “I don’t think we really look back at what we haven’t done in the past. It’s more about what we’re doing now.”
“There’s a lot of awe and excitement in the school about it, but as a team, we feel like it’s time to go to work,” added senior Carson Johnson, a middle linebacker and fullback. “Let’s really go for this thing. We don’t want it to be over.”
Talawanda is still kicking thanks to beaten opponents like Madison, which won its last five games to earn a share of its first Southwestern Buckeye League Buckeye Division title; Northwest, which took down Harrison 42-25 in Week 9; and Little Miami, which ended a 25-game losing streak by knocking off Taft 29-13 in Week 10.
Scott Schmid, the Braves’ Harbin computer expert and a science teacher at THS, gave Vonderheide the “You’re in” proclamation about an hour after Talawanda’s 28-13 win over Ross last Friday.
“That might have been the happiest moment of my coaching career,” Vonderheide said. “It was pretty emotional. I still think back to when I took this job, all those people back in Harrison saying, ‘You can’t win there.’ And here we are, one of 32 teams left in Division III, which is pretty cool.”
The Little Miami win was last weekend’s real stunner, though Vonderheide said he knew the Panthers were getting better each week. He congratulated — and thanked — LM coach Ben Hubbard at the Southwest Ohio Conference coaches meeting.
“It’s nice to go to the all-league meeting and think, ‘Hey, we’re in. We’re one of those guys in the playoffs,’ ” Vonderheide said. “It’s always good to be humble, but we can be proud of what we’ve accomplished up to this point. We’re now in that crew.
“It’s about the kids. This is my job and I’ll try to do this for the next 30 years, but for the kids to be able to experience it and see the transformation they’ve made in the school and the community rallying around them, there aren’t words to describe it.”
He said Week 5 was the turning point for Talawanda. Vonderheide picked up an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty with about four minutes left in the third quarter of a 45-39 loss at Harrison, but the Braves made a spirited comeback before falling.
“I looked like a complete jackass getting that penalty, but I had to get in our kids’ heads that I had their back,” Vonderheide said.
“That was not an easy morning after having two kids ejected, sending my team off the field, getting booed out of a place that I coached at and absolutely breaking my heart, and people questioning my character as the coach. But the kids rallied around me, we rallied around each other, and we haven’t looked back since.”
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