OLIVESBURG – It was the perfect night for Liam Kuhn to get greedy.
In a rivalry showdown Friday against St. Paul that was about as must-win as games get in Week 7, the Crestview senior was a jack-of-all-trades dynamo, turning in one of the best performances of his career.
Kuhn threw for two touchdowns, ran for a 49-yard score and had an interception in the end zone to help tilt the scales in the Cougars’ favor in a 30-21 win over the Flyers at Scott Bailey Memorial Field.
“They’ve had our number the last two years and I’ve always – coming into (the St. Paul game) – I’ve gotten a little nervous,” said the 6-foot-4 Kuhn. “But today I felt very calm, cool and collected and just played my butt off.”
The victory kept Crestview (5-2, 4-0 Firelands Conference) tied atop the league standings with Monroeville (5-2, 4-0) and provided key computer points for a CHS squad that has climbed into the Division VI playoff picture.
The Cougars now have won their last seven home games dating back to last year and will carry a five-game win streak into yet another monster matchup next week at Western Reserve (5-2, 3-1).
“(Kuhn) had a heck of a football game tonight,” Crestview head coach Steve Haverdill said of his three-year starter. “When he puts his mind to it, there’s not a whole lot he can’t do.
“When he stays focused and he’s throwing the ball well, running the ball, it makes it tough to stop our offense. That’s a good football team that we were able to score 30 points on.”
The Flyers (3-4, 2-2) entered the night hoping to stay among the FC leaders, and they had plenty of chances to do just that.
St. Paul finished 9-of-11 on third-down plays and ran for 200 yards on offense, with big first-half touchdown runs from both Nick Pocos (15 carries for 97 yards) and Casey Fries (10 carries for 78 yards).
But the Flyers committed two critical turnovers on potential scoring drives and watched Crestview convert three of its fourth-down plays in the game – two of them for touchdowns.
When St. Paul made a goal-line stand with 2:07 to play and the chance to tie the game, a holding penalty in the end zone gave CHS a safety for two points, along with possession to run out the clock.
“They made the big plays when they needed to and we didn’t,” St. Paul head coach Chris Doughty said. “The kids battled hard and gave great effort, but when you make mistakes against a good team, you get exposed, and they exposed ours tonight.”
There was no bigger momentum swing than Kuhn’s interception in the Crestview end zone late in the first half.
Quarterback Grant Kuhnle (7-of-13 passing for 84 yards) guided St. Paul to the CHS 9-yard line, looking to put the Flyers ahead, 21-14.
But on a first-down play, he rolled right and tossed the pick to Kuhn on the right side of the end zone.
With 1:10 before halftime, Kuhn drove the Cougars 80 yards in just 64 seconds, capping the march with a 26-yard touchdown pass to Ayden Reymer on fourth-and-10.
With that, Crestview seized a 21-14 lead at intermission, and the Cougars opened the second half with a 14-play, 75-yard touchdown drive that ate up 7:30 of game clock.
Kuhn (11-of-18 passing, 173 yards; 10 carries for 85 yards) converted a fourth-and-3 from the St. Paul 10 with a 6-yard run on that march. Then Reymer punched in a 4-yard touchdown to make it 28-14 after Keith Abshire’s fourth PAT kick.
St. Paul answered to make it 28-21 early in the fourth following a 12-play, 69-yard drive of its own – capped by a 1-yard plunge from Kuhnle.
After a three-and-out from the Cougar offense, the Flyers got the ball back with a chance to tie it.
St. Paul crept toward midfield, but Crestview ran a blitz and Bransen Hider came around the back side to swipe the ball out of Kuhnle’s hands for a fumble that Abshire covered.
“They were just more physical than us at certain points in the game; we wore down a little bit,” Haverdill said of the Flyers. “It bit us a little bit but credit to (the Cougars), they stood up when it mattered and they dug their heels in and got after it when it counted.”
The Cougars drained precious minutes off the clock from there, and even though the Flyers stuffed Kuhn on the goal-line five minutes later, the safety sealed it.
Haverdill said it was a huge statement win after Crestview left Norwalk with a 16-15 loss to St. Paul a season ago.
Had the Cougars won that game, they would have shared last year’s FC title with Monroeville. Instead, the Flyers split the crown.
In 13 of the last 14 seasons, the winner of the Crestview-St. Paul matchup has gone on to at least share a piece of the FC championship.
“I think it bit us a little bit last year (at St. Paul),” Haverdill said when asked about the Flyers’ toughness. “We didn’t handle that physicality as well against them. So we really emphasized that this week, that we had to pick it up a notch.”
Crestview scored the first points in the first quarter, as Kuhn connected with Karter Goon (5 catches for 65 yards) for a 24-yard strike on a fourth-and-13 play.
“Without those fourth-down conversions, that game is a whole different ballgame,” Kuhn said. “We were just like, ‘OK, we’ve got to get this in our playmakers’ hands and hope they make a play,’ and they did.”
St. Paul answered when Fries – a swift freshman – slipped multiple tackles for a 31-yard TD late in the first quarter.
Kuhn and Pocos traded 49- and 19-yard scoring runs in the second period to knot it at 14-14, but the Cougar defense stiffened from there and helped CHS outscore the visitors 16-7 the rest of the way.
Goon, who cleared 400 receiving yards for the season, finished with eight tackles and a sack at defensive end.
Carson Keener chipped in 59 yards on three receptions.
Safety Dylan Burge, meanwhile, had a team-high 11 tackles for the Cougars.
“He’s a tackling machine and he plays that adjuster for us and he leads everything,” Haverdill said of the senior, who has eclipsed 50 tackles in each of the last three seasons.
Also on the night, Reymer surpassed 2,500 rushing yards for his career, totaling 65 yards on 18 carries.
Now the Cougars head to Western Reserve, where a win would get them a step closer to their third FC title in the last five seasons.
“It’s a playoff situation for us right now; we’ve got to take these as playoff (games),” said Haverdill, who earlier this season surpassed Sean Conway to earn the most FC wins at CHS (now 34).
“We knew going in that Monroeville, Western, St. Paul and us were going to be in contention, so it’s gonna be who’s playing well that night and who’s gonna stand up to the challenge.”
