CALEDONIA — The statistics tell the obvious story. It was Galion’s ground and pound attack against the aerial assault of River Valley in a Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference game Friday night.

The Tigers came into the game wanting to stick to a basic formula, head coach Matt Dick said.

“Their quarterbacks have been absolutely outstanding — the (Chase) Ebert kid, before that it was the (Cayden) Shidone kid and before him the coach’s kid (Jake Green). We just kind of found out that if we smash the ball up the middle a lot, we have a real chance of winning. That really hasn’t been our MO this year, but I felt it was our best chance to win.”

Galion (6-3, 3-3) ran the ball well, piling up 395 rushing yards.

Braxton Stuckman, who had 147 yards on the ground, got the Tigers on the board first with a 7-yard blast.

“We focused all week on it in practice. It’s a mindset. I think their coach even said it in a pregame video on The OH.Report that they’d have to stop the run. We knew we had to stop the pass. Tonight, the ball bounced our way a little bit. It was a close game between two very even teams,” Dick said.

But the emergence of recently installed quarterback Ayden Schmidt paid huge dividends.

Schmidt, a 155-pound junior, passed for 109 yards and two scores and ran it 11 times for 210 yards. His runs of 83 and 70 yards for scores in the fourth quarter opened up a 28-13 game and kept Galion in good position to host a home playoff game in two weeks.

“He’s a tough kid and he has fresh leg because he’s not been pounded on all season. So come week 8-9, he looks a lot faster than most kids because his legs aren’t all bruised up and banged up. That lets us put Braxton Prosser out at slot with Jacob Chambers and that’s two special skilled athletes. We used them mildly tonight.”

River Valley (5-4, 3-3) relied on its 5-wide offense as Ebert connected on 27-of-46 passes for 276 yards.

His top target was Kolton Lang with 98 yards on seven catches. Eli Snyder, who caught a 21-yard pass with under 20 seconds on the game clock, added 61 yards on six receptions.

Vikings head coach Matt Waddle knew his team made its share of errors, including 116 yards in penalties.

“We made a lot of mistakes tonight and we gave up a couple of big plays over the top, and that’s not usually us. Credit to Galion. They played a heck of a game,” he said.

“The last three years they’ve done a good job of running the ball against us and we haven’t done a good job stopping them.”

A key momentum changer turned out to be trick play by Galion in the second quarter. A fake punt, on fourth down and eight from the RV 48, was a pass covering 18 yards from Dominic Capretta to Kane Hay.

That set up a Schmidt to Chambers 30-yard touchdown that put Galion ahead for good, 14-10. Chambers later intercepted an RV pass to end a drive.

“Every time we’ve played them there’s been a play in the first half where we just have to make a play, whether it’s a trick offensive play or a special teams play. We just need to score and if we don’t, they’re going to get the ball and go down and score and be up by too much,” Dick said.

Dick said his staff debated the call on the sidelines.

“My special teams coordinator, Kyle Bishop, he wanted it. I checked with my defense to see what they thought. We’ve been repping that play all year, and we finally broke it out at the right time.”

Galion finishes with Marion Harding Friday night.

Waddle liked his team’s effort.

“Our kids always play ’til the end of the game, and I take pride in that, and I know they take pride in that, and our kids take pride in that.

“It was a big week and we still a lot to play for. We’ve got a game against Clear Fork. So, we need to make sure we come back and have a good week of practice and hopefully have a chance to host a playoff game.”

Trey Longwell and Zach Sallee had tackles for loss for the Tigers.

River Valley came into the game ranked sixth and Galion seventh in this week’s OHSAA computer ratings that determine the playoffs pairings, separated by a fraction of a point. Both teams are in Division IV, Region 14.

Box score

Score by quarters

Galion                 7           7        14       14   — 42

River Valley      7           6          0        21   — 34

Scoring summary

First quarter

G — Braxton Stuckman 7 run (Allen Carver kick), 7:32.

RV — Kolton Lang 23 pass from Chase Ebert (Hudson Pollock kick), 4:26.

Second quarter

RV — Pollock 37 field goal, 7:11.

G — Jason Chambers 30 pass from Ayden Schmidt (Carver kick), :36.8.

RV — Pollock 46 field goal, :02.

Third quarter

G — Chambers 60 pass from Schmidt (Carver kick), 10:11.

G — Stuckman 26 run (Carver kick), 7:17.

Fourth quarter

RV — Eyan Axline 10 pass from Ebert (Pollock kick), 9:46.

G — Schmidt 83 run (Carver kick), 9:26.

G — Schmidt 70 run (Carver kick), 8:03.

RV — Jayden McCullough 3 pass from Ebert (Pollock kick), 1:06.

RV — Eli Snyder 21 pass from Ebert (Pollock kick), :19.6.

Individual statistics

Passing

Galion: Ayden Schmidt 4-8-2 109. Dominick Capretta 1-1-0 19.

River Valley: Chase Ebert 27-46-2 276.

Rushing

Galion: Ayden Schmidt 11-210, Braxton Stuckman 25-147, Braxton Prosser 24-112, Jacob Chambers 2-11.

River Valley: Chase Ebert 8-64, Honour Jennings 4-13.

Receiving

Galion: Jacob Chambers 3-97, Kane Hay 1-18, Landyn Prosser 1-13.

River Valley: Kolton Lang 7-98, Carter Park 5-62, Eli Snyder 6-61, Luke Axline 5-35, Eyan Axline 1-10, Jayden McCullough 2-7, Honour Jennings 1-3.

Team statistics

G             RV

First downs                   20            21

Rushing                    49-395       12-77

Passes                         5-9-2       27-46-2

Yards passing            128            276

Total yards                 523            353

Fumbles                       2-0             0-0

Penalties                     9-63          11-116