PG Regional Quarterfinals 

It is that time of year again. Big matchups and high hopes are plentiful as we approach the twelfth Friday of the Ohio high school football season. One of the most intriguing games will take place at Memorial Field when the Pandora-Gilboa Rockets take on the home North Baltimore Tigers.

North Baltimore

The Tigers ran through the Northwest Central Conference en route to a perfect 10-0 regular season. A balanced offense and lockdown defense have truly led the way for the Tigers to get going. Since week one, North Baltimore has scored over 40 points in each of their matchups including two games scoring north of 60 points. The biggest question mark on their resume is their strength of record. North Baltimore's opponents have a combined record of just 39-62 and not one of them grabbed a playoff victory (only Ridgedale qualified but lost 61-8 vs Gibsonburg). 

North Baltimore has already had a season with plenty of history. Never has the school hosted a playoff game a chance they now will get with a familiar foe. It will be an uphill battle historically as Pandora-Gilboa is 6-0 against the Tigers in almost all one sided affairs. The Tigers have not been above .500 heading into the postseason since 2017 when they posted a 6-4 record. That season saw PG travel to North Baltimore and win by a convincing score of 74-18. Remember the year 2017, we will talk about the significance of that season for the Rockets in just a little bit. 

The Tigers had last week off with a bye but in week 10 ran past Upper Scioto Valley and won 49-8. The only points for the Rams came in the 4th quarter after North Baltimore opened the game up 28-0 at half. Starting wide receiver Cooper Clark rushed for 119 yards on only three carries, two of which went for touchdowns. He ended his day with 242 all purpose yards and four of his team's seven touchdowns. Quarterback Luke Long threw one (of his only four interceptions this season) against USV but made up for it with 11 completions, 215 yards, and 2 touchdowns.

Pandora-Gilboa

Up and down does not even begin to describe the season for the Rockets. They won the games they should have and had a huge rivalry victory against Columbus Grove but a tough loss to Leipsic and blowouts against Liberty Benton and Bluffton really hurt. The strength of record for PG is much better than their regional semifinal counterpart as they have the ninth best resume (according to Fantastic 50) and their opponents have a combined record of 63-51 including two teams still alive in the playoffs. It is an offense becoming slightly more pass heavy but still somewhat balanced (we'll get into more specifics later) but they still manage to average over 320 yards per game.

Historically speaking Pandora-Gilboa has not had large scale playoff success. The Rockets have only made the postseason 13 times in school history (2025 is the 74th season of PG football), all of which were after 1995. Just about half of these are thanks to current head coach Matt Hershey who has made it 6 times in his 9 years at the helm. The Rockets stand just one win away from the regional semifinals where the Rockets have only found themselves twice (2017 and 2018). They are 1-1 in these games as their only trip to the regional finals was in 2017 when they lost to Norwalk St. Paul 49-7. In 2018 it was a loss to Edgerton where the Rockets couldn't get anything going during the 52-8 matchup. That season the Rockets were the only team to beat eventual state champion McComb by a score of 19-14 (making them transitive champions if that existed). 2021 was the latest matchup between the Tigers and Rockets and Pandora-Gilboa remained dominant winning 42-6.

Last week saw PG win in a repeat of their matchup against Arlington by a score of 42-20. The Rockets only gave up 33 yards to a run heavy Red Devil team who averaged 160 yards per game going into week 11. Chase Meyer and Breydon Ferguson each had huge games for the rockets combining for 9 catches, 212 yards, and 2 touchdowns. It was not their best game on the ground but as always a persistent Ben Burkholder rushed in 2 scores and Cory Gerten added 1. The Rockets really have settled in during the second half of games and that trend continued against Arlington where they outscored the Red Devis 21-7. 

RECORD WATCH: Chase Meyer looks to add his name alongside Cory Gerten (career passing yards) and Layton Cannode (single season field goals) who have their names etched in the record books at Pandora-Gilboa. Meyer has tallied 71 receptions for 1,047 yards this season meaning he is closing in on two huge receiving records. Bryce Basinger holds the current yards record with his 1,134 receiving yards in 2019 (meaning Meyer is 88 yards away from solo lead). For single season receptions current assistant coach Carter Nofziger holds the record with 76 in the 2017 season (Meyer is 6 away from solo lead). Nofziger also holds the record for all of Putnam County's history meaning Meyer could find himself at the top of the Putnam County records.

Numbers Breakdown

This section is for the fellow stat nerds out there who want to see how the teams stack up on some stats. North Baltimore finds themself statistically better than PG somewhat consistently which could be due to many factors including strength of opponents as mentioned earlier on. On top of this North Baltimore has some phenomenal athletes that have flown under the radar. 

Luckily for Pandora-Gilboa the game is not played on paper and even though "numbers don't lie" they sometimes can exaggerate the truth of how good a team is. The true thing that will not lie is film and eventually what will ensue at 7:00 on Friday when the Rockets and Tigers meet for the 7th time in school history. According to Fantastic 50, PG is favored to win by 20. Take this with a huge grain of salt as these predictions are not perfect but it is an indication of what the numbers point towards. If you can not make it to Memorial Stadium tune into Putnam Sports Radio  with a pregame show consisting of coach interviews staring at 6:30 before the 7:00 kickoff. 

Read more articles by Chase Dettrow