You only get one chance to win your first playoff football game. Milford High School did it in style.
The Eagles trailed Fairfield 35-7 40 seconds into the third quarter on Friday, November 2. By the time the final horn sounded, the Eagles had run off 32 straight points to win the game 39-35 and advance to the regional semifinals.
Milford head coach Tom Grippa said the Eagles’ ability to overcome everything that went wrong in the contest was nothing short of a miracle.
“That was a miracle game,” Grippa said. “It was a miraculous game for us, to play a team for that caliber and be down and behind…everything was against us. We’re a passing team, and it rains the whole game. It’s like, ‘Lord, what are you doing? Help us!’”
The first quarter was fairly close. Fairfield struck first, with Peyton Brown scoring on a four-yard touchdown run with 9:36 left in the period. Milford answered roughly five minutes later, when Hunter Johnson rolled to his right and threw back to the left to a wide-open Connor Foster for a three-yard score. The game was tied at seven after one quarter.
Fairfield scored twice in the second period, the first coming on a 45-yard pass from quarterback Jeff Tyus to Brown. The ball was thrown near the line of scrimmage, with Brown doing the rest of the work, breaking tackles on his way to the end zone.
Later in the period, the Indians took advantage of a Milford miscue. A penalty on Milford gave the Indians a second shot at fourth down, and Erick All scored on a 44-yard fake punt to put Fairfield ahead 21-7. Mistakes like that one doomed the Eagles in the first half, according to Grippa.
“We made a ton of mistakes,” Grippa said. “It’s third and nine or 10 and we line up and get a stop. It’s fourth and nine, and we lineup offsides. They go for it and score. If we make them punt, that’s one less score for them and it could have been different. For us to come back and score as many points as we did…We scored 32 points in the second half. Wow.”
It didn’t appear Milford would be able to do much of anything in the second half, given how the third quarter started. Fairfield returned the second half kickoff inside the one-yard line, and promptly scored on a one-yard dive by Tyus to take a 28-7 lead.
They scored again 19 seconds later. Johnson threw an interception, and Jaydan Mays brought the ball back to the goal line before fumbling. Elijah Hatfield fell on the ball in the end zone to give Fairfield a 35-7 lead with 11:20 left.
Two quick second half touchdowns made things more difficult for the Eagles, but senior running back Cameron Kells said the team just remembered what Grippa told them at halftime.
“He told us to never give up, and we didn’t,” Kells said. “We put a whole year to get here, and we really just wanted to win and make history.”
The march to the history books began with a one-yard run by Kells at the 8:43 mark of the third quarter, cutting the lead to 35-14. Milford scored again in the period on a 23-yard pass from Johnson to Dylan Hughes.
In the fourth quarter, the Eagles cut the lead to eight points on a three-yard run by Kells with 8:29 remaining. After Milford’s defense forced a punt, the Eagles scored again on a 35-yard bomb from Johnson to Hughes with 4:07 remaining to trim the margin to just two points. Fairfield started a promising drive, getting to the Milford 17 yard line before Jake Ayler intercepted a pass by Sawiaha Ellis.
Milford moved 79 yards in three plays to get to the Fairfield seven, and on third and goal, Kells scored the go-ahead touchdown with 1:28 left in the game. He said the team had one goal on their mind as they embarked on the game-winning drive.
“Get the ball down the field,” Kells said. “We had three, four minutes left, so we had some time. Hunter was doing great in the second half, the offensive line was blocking great. We knew we were going to score, it was just a matter of how much time we were going to leave on the clock.”
Fairfield had good starting field position on the drive, taking over at their own 43 yard line. Jake Ayler intercepted the first pass of the drive, and Milford ran out the rest of the clock to clinch the school’s first-ever playoff win. Grippa credited the win to the offense’s revitalization in the second half.
“Hunter Johnson and Dylan Hughes came alive in that second half and played extremely well,” Grippa said. “It was a great team effort. Our defense rose up. They look like they got tired, and we looked like we got energized in that fourth quarter. I’m so proud of our kids.”
The Milford defense allowed just one score in the second half, with the other touchdown coming on a defensive score by Fairfield. After that touchdown, Fairfield drives in the second half ended with three punts, two fumbles and two interceptions.
“The defense has been playing good the last three weeks,” Grippa said. “We played good against West Clermont, we played good against Turpin and we played good tonight.”
Milford’s defense held one of the area’s better running backs, Jutahn McClain, to just seven carries for 78 yards, though that was mostly due to McClain missing a large chunk of the game with a wrist injury. Tyus also had to leave the game due to injury after fumbling the ball in the third quarter.
For Milford, Kells finished with 24 carries for 120 yards, three touchdowns and an injured wrist of his own. Johnson completed 21 of his 39 passes for 381 yards, three touchdowns and three interceptions.
Ayler led the team with seven receptions. His 101 yards were second to Hughes, who snagged six passes for 163 yards and two scores. Kells had three receptions for 32 yards.
Defensively, Hayden Johnson led the team with eight tackles. C.T. Phillips had seven tackles and a sack. He also forced a fumble and recovered another. Ayler had a forced fumble and an interception. Dustin Laudermilk had the Eagle’s other pick, while Cameron Hemmert forced the team’s second fumble.
All in all, it was a night not soon forgotten by anyone involved with the Milford team.
“It was awesome,” Grippa said. “I’m so proud of the Milford community, everyone came out. We had a good crowd, especially considering the rain.”
The Eagles will be looking for similar support from the Milford community in the regional semifinal, scheduled for Friday, November 9 at St. Xavier High School. The Eagles are scheduled to face No. 1 seed Colerain at 7 p.m.