110124...EP@JFK 2...Liberty...11-01-24...JFK defenders #41 ____________ and #21 Jaylen Murray tackle EP #6Owen Jurjavcic during 1st half action...by R. Michael Semple

LIBERTY — The tortoise, as the fable goes, beats the hare because the tortoise, despite being slower than hare, remains steady and consistent.

For the first half of Friday’s first-round Division VII playoff game at Liberty, East Palestine assumed the role of tortoise, slowly but steadily pummeling higher-seeded Warren JFK.

But fables are works of fiction, and football games are not.

After trailing 13-0 at one point in the first half, Kennedy scored 40 unanswered points and rolled to a 40-13 win that earned the Eagles a spot in the regional quarterfinal.

“We know what our boys are capable of,” Warren JFK coach Damon Buente said. “We played a very patient ball club, so we had to be patient. You can’t score a 21-point touchdown. You have to do it one play at a time. So we were patient and told our kids to be physical, and when you look up at that scoreboard, you’ll be okay.”

From kickoff, the Bulldogs dominated the line of scrimmage.

East Palestine’s first offensive possession lasted 10 plays, all of which runs and nine of which by quarterback Owen Jurjavcic, whose size and strength made it a chore for the Eagles defenders to drag him to the turf.

On the 10th play of the drive, Jurjavcic kept his legs moving and carried several Eagles along with him across the goal line for the first touchdown of the game. In their first moment of positivity, Kennedy blocked the extra point to keep the score at 6-0.

However, whatever momentum generated dissipated by the time the Eagles’ offense left the field.

Playing in place of injured starting quarterback Freddy Bolchalk, junior LaMarcus Provitt immediately displayed his athleticism with 32 rushing yards on the first drive. However, Provitt could not corral a high snap on the fourth play of the possession and the Bulldogs recovered.

East Palestine picked up where it left off and drove the ball 56 yards over 12 plays, the final of which was a 11-yard touchdown pass from Jurjavcic to Braydon Plum, which, along with a successful PAT, put the Bulldogs ahead 13-0.

Although East Palestine seemed on the verge of a surprisingly decisive upset, much of the rest of Friday’s contest belonged to the Eagles.

“I thought our kids played hard,” East Palestine head coach Mike Demster said. “I really liked our game plan. We executed it really well in the first half. They came out in the second half with some adjustments.”

On the third play of the next JFK possession, Provitt dumped the ball off to tailback Marcus Komora, who evaded EP’s entire defense en route to a 64-yard touchdown reception. After the score, Kennedy successfully converted a 2-point attempt, the first five such conversions.

The 13-8 score held going into halftime, but it did not stay that way very long after the second-half kickoff.

On the second play of Kennedy’s first drive in the third quarter, Provitt eluded defenders and jetted to the end zone for a 54-yard rushing touchdown less than a minute into the half.

Sixty-eight seconds later, the Eagles were again celebrating a touchdown; in what would have been one of East Palestine’s biggest plays of the game, Plum fumbled after a reception and JFK senior Noah Elser recovered the ball and returned it half of the length of the field for a touchdown.

“[That] really, really took the wind out of our sales and kind of changed the momentum of the game, and ultimately, the outcome of the game,” Demster said.

Despite suddenly trailing, the Bulldogs continued with its slow, methodical offense. But the results had flipped, just like everything else in the second half for East Palestine.

The Bulldogs would not score again, and Kennedy continued to do so, with Provitt rushing for a 20-yard touchdown and Jaylen Murray capping the night off with a 17-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter.

The win puts Warren JFK, which won just two games a year ago, into next week’s Division VII regional quarterfinal. The Eagles will travel to Monroeville, which dominated Independence 47-7 in its first-round game Friday.

Although he praised Provitt and offensive coordinator Matt “Mo” Green for the junior backup’s preparation for Friday’s win, Buente expects Bolchalk, who the coach said would need to complete a few “checkups” in the coming week, to be ready to go vs. Monroeville.

For East Palestine, Friday’s defeat ended its season, which elicited lots of post-game emotions.

“These seniors have been the heart and soul of this team since I got here three years ago as sophomores. And I’ll be honest, they weren’t very good when I got here,” Demster said. “[But] they put in the work, and the success we had this year and the change in the program is directly attributed to those 10 guys that we’re losing. I’m gonna miss them a whole lot.”