By Rick Cassano

HARRISON – Historic, emotional and downright sweet.

That pretty much summed up Harrison High School’s Friday night as the Wildcats earned the right to play for the Division II, Region 8 football championship.

Harrison mostly scrapped its ground game for an aerial attack and shot down visiting Trotwood-Madison 20-13 in a regional semifinal at Bill Kuntz Field, one year after taking a 49-0 beating from the Rams at this stage of the 2025 postseason.

“We got embarrassed last year. Our kids took that to heart,” Wildcats coach Derek Rehage said. “We talked all week about finishing the fight.”

Brady Lawhon had an understandably weary right arm after completing 29-of-53 passes for 267 yards and three touchdowns in the final home game of his prep career.

The senior quarterback is always the focal point of the offense, but he took on a much heavier load in this one. His previous single-game high in pass attempts was 26 at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy in Week 6 last season.

“I love having the ball in my hands,” Lawhon said. “I knew either way this game ended, I was going to cry. Finally getting over that hump in the regional semifinals is just an amazing feeling. We’ve been underdogs all the way, so let’s go shock the world. Bring it on.”

Second-seeded Harrison (10-2) had suffered regional-semifinal setbacks the last three years before conquering No. 3 seed Trotwood (8-3). Now it’s on to take a shot at top-seeded Anderson (11-1) for a regional title next Friday at a neutral site that will be announced by the Ohio High School Athletic Association on Sunday.

“It’s really something special,” HHS junior linebacker Izzy Taylor said. “We’re a special group and we’ve been working hard all throughout the summer and the season and this has been our goal forever, so it’s really just amazing.”

The Wildcats have only won one regional championship in school history (1988). This will be their first appearance in a regional final since 2019.

“We’re in the Final 8, baby. Who cares about being the underdog?” Rehage said. “This is what we do all this work for. We’re playing with house money.

“This is our most complete team. They work their asses off together and really do believe in each other. That’s the bottom line.”

Rehage rolled the dice with his plan of attack and went airborne most of the night. He saw no upside to challenging a Trotwood defensive front that’s big and intimidating. And he believes in Lawhon at the controls.

Harrison tried a fake punt (Kyle Davidson completed a 19-yard pass that didn’t get the first down) and converted two fourth downs. Trey Fette and Eli Kirby also recovered onside kicks in the second half.

“They embarrassed us last year up front. We thought we could run it and should have known better,” Rehage said. “I think they’ve given up two rushing touchdowns this year, and they’ve played a gauntlet of a schedule. They had 10 Division I athletes. Their D-line is the best D-line I’ve ever coached against in 19 years of coaching high school football. They’re just dudes.

“We knew we couldn’t run the ball, so we went in with a game plan that we were going to throw it every play. We thought we could hold up a little bit in pass pro, which other teams have done, and we tried to take some of the Anderson model from what they did to Trotwood last year.

“We literally made wristbands with call sheets and pass plays because we don’t throw the ball that much here. We got the kids to believe. We showed them some things that Edgewood did to them. We were thinking they’re at our place. They’ve got to make the long drive down here. We’ve earned this. Let’s finish the fight.”

Rehage said the Wildcats have been game-planning all season for the possibility of playing the Rams. He said even if they didn’t meet this year, they’d have a plan for next year’s regular-season clash.

Trotwood coach Jeff Graham admitted he didn’t see this kind of offensive approach coming.

“I’m not saying that Harrison is not that type of program and he’s not that type of quarterback, but I haven’t seen that on film,” Graham said. “Film study showed that they establish the run and then try to get some passes going. But to throw consistently out of five wides, I didn’t expect that at all.

“They had to see a tape of us, probably the Anderson game last year. Whatever they saw that they could exploit us, they did. They executed a game plan. That’s a good football team.”

Graham didn’t feel like his Rams had the kind of effort and execution that they’re known for, but they still had a number of opportunities to get on the winning side.

Trotwood’s final possession ended on a fourth-and-8 throw from the HHS 21. A receiver was open in the end zone, but the toss from quarterback Jayden McClain was a little off the mark with 2:49 left.

“We had situations to make plays on offense and defense,” Graham said. “We let them return two onside kicks, which is not normal for us. We have to play hard to win games like this. That’s one of the biggest things our kids have got to understand. The game is a 48-minute game, so we’ve just got to keep going.”

The Wildcats needed one first down to run out the clock and did that with 1:45 remaining when Lawhon connected with Christian Roether for 15 yards on third-and-8.

Lawhon spread the ball around all night and hit Roether, Fette and Colton Rehage for touchdowns. Most of the receptions were made by Rehage (seven catches, 50 yards), Davidson (six catches, 63 yards), Roether (six catches, 73 yards), Fette (five catches, 43 yards) and Dillon Witt (four catches, 59 yards).

“They were great,” Lawhon said. “Every playmaker on our offense had a big play that we needed.”

Lawhon did get picked off by Andrew Thornton and Jariah Zigo in the third quarter, doubling his season interception total to four. He said that was simply part of doing business in a contest like this.

“When you’re throwing 50 times a game, interceptions are going to happen,” Lawhon said. “I just accepted that. I wasn’t going to let it affect me.”

McClain was 12-of-26 for 120 yards through the air for the Rams. Zye’Air Fields turned a swing pass into a 54-yard touchdown on Trotwood’s second play from scrimmage.

The Rams’ Daylan Dennis ran 15 times for 76 yards and had a 33-yard scoring run that closed the gap to 14-13 in the third stanza. The extra point failed and kept Harrison in front heading to the final quarter.

Taylor paced the Wildcats in tackles with eight and pushed his team-leading season total to 104.

“Our coaches just preached not to quit,” Taylor said. “Even when things went against us, we kept going no matter what. Our D-line, our corners, our linebackers, we all came together. I just felt like this was our night. It’s all belief and faith. We took last year’s game personally and wanted to make our goal of going to the regional finals. We gave everything we had.”

Beyond Harrison vs. Anderson, the other three D-II regional-final matchups in the state will be Columbus Watterson vs. Massillon Washington, Toledo Central Catholic vs. Avon and Medina Highland vs. Macedonia Nordonia.

Trotwood-Madison 7-0-6-0 -- 13

Harrison 7-7-0-6 -- 20

T: Zye’Air Fields 54 pass from Jayden McClain (Andrew Thornton kick)

H: Christian Roether 8 pass from Brady Lawhon (Michael Wiesemann Jr. kick)

H: Trey Fette 21 pass from Lawhon (Griffin Musgrove kick)

T: Daylan Dennis 33 run (Kick failed)

H: Colton Rehage 10 pass from Lawhon (Kick failed)

Records: T 8-3, H 10-2