High school football: Grady Gibb leads Highland to dominant win over Tallmadge

GRANGER TWP. — The NCAA career completion percentage leader was in the house Friday, so Highland senior Grady Gibb decided to show current Browns rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders what a truly ridiculous completion percentage looks like. The first-year starter's magical season continued in earnest Friday in a 62-0 Suburban League American Conference victory over Tallmadge. Gibb completed 8-of-9 passes for 185 yards, eight first downs and a school-record-tying four touchdowns — he rushed for two more — to make him 53-for-60 (.883) for 1,008 yards and 12 touchdowns on the season despite playing in a fourth quarter only once. Sanders, who completed 71.8% of his passes in two years at Colorado, lives in Granger Township and has attended multiple Highland sporting events this fall. He signed autographs for children at halftime and left early in the third quarter, but The Gibb Show was done by then, anyway, after Highland (6-0, 3-0) led 28-0 after one quarter and 49-0 at halftime against the rebuilding Blue Devils (2-4, 1-2), who will leave for the Metro Athletic Conference this summer. "It's awesome just having someone in the community getting to watch our game. It's super cool," Gibb said of Sanders. "I've gotten to throw with him. He's a great dude, very chill. Great guy." The Hornets figured they'd work on their passing game — if nine passing attempts can be called that — and Gibb sandwiched 15- and 23-yarders to Lucas Gerding (4 catches, 104 yards) around a 21-yard strike to Nick Dobkowski on the opening three plays of the game. Gibb (5 carries, 69 yards) capped the drive on a 16-yard rush in which he juked two defenders and the Hornets were off and rolling. Gibb's next TD was a 43-yard deep crossing route to Gerding. All-Ohio running back Casey Myser (10 carries, 104 yards) made the score 21-0 on a 17-yard run, then Gibb looped a 12-yard throwback to H-back Evan Foust and rumbled 34 yards on a triple option to the right. Getting the ball back one more time before halftime, Highland would have been content with a Jonah Kowza field goal attempt but picked up enough chunk yardage that Gerding went deep on a corner route and caught a 23-yard Gibb pass to move the score to 49-0 with 18 seconds left. Highland had 17 plays for 231 yards in the first quarter alone en route to finishing with 36 for 485, a 13.4 average. Seniors Dylan Lazar and Aiden Pulice capped the scoring with 50- and 1-yard runs in the second half. "We set a goal amongst ourselves," Gibb said. "It's not about the competition. It's about making ourselves better and holding ourselves accountable, like the coaches talked about. Some drives we scored, but they weren't the best drives. We still had mistakes we made — things to be corrected — but there's always ways to get better." With leading rusher Sonny Cuva out, Tallmadge elected to go five-wide with Ellet transfer Braxton Dente at the controls or under center in the I-formation with Logan Miles at tailback. Highland's defense wasn't fazed by the drastically different philosophies, holding the Blue Devils to minus-9 rushing yards and 64 overall. Cooper Zielinski led the charge early with an interception. Foust also picked off Dente, Dan Miller (1½), Lukas Grillis (1) and Cody Bendau (1) had sacks and Chris Metzger brought some life to an otherwise bored crowd with a big hit late in the first half. The Highland first-team defense has allowed one touchdown this season, on an eight-play, 31-yard drive in a 34-7 victory over Avon Lake. That is the lone game this season that didn't have a running clock at some point in the second half. "Our goal was to just play our hardest," Zielinski said. "We knew what we were coming into and we were trying to play our game. "I liked how we played hard. We hit hard, we were great in coverage, we didn't let up any passes and we got a couple interceptions." Contact Albert Grindle at (330) 721-4043 or agrindle@medina-gazette.com. Highland 62, Tallmadge 0 TALLMADGE &emsp;&emsp;0 0 0 0 — 0 HIGHLAND &emsp;&emsp;28 21 6 7 — 62 First H — Grady Gibb 16 run (Jonah Kowza kick), 8:30. H — Lucas Gerding 43 pass from Gibb (Kowza kick), 6:18. H — Casey Myser 21 pass from Gibb (Kowza kick), 2:48. H — Myser 17 run (Kowza kick), 0:08. Second H — Evan Foust 12 pass from Gibb (Kowza kick), 5:33. H — Gibb 34 run (Landon Kuzma kick), 3:14. H — Gerding 23 pass from Gibb (Kuzma kick), 0:18. Third H — Dylan Lazar 50 run (kick blocked), 6:20. Fourth H — Aiden Pulice 1 run (Kuzma kick), 2:47. &emsp;&emsp;T &emsp;&emsp;H First downs &emsp;&emsp;6 &emsp;&emsp;23 Rushing &emsp;&emsp;20/-9 27/300 Rushing average &emsp;&emsp;-0.5 &emsp;&emsp;11.1 Passing &emsp;&emsp;9/17 &emsp;&emsp;8/9 Passing yards &emsp;&emsp;73 &emsp;&emsp;185 Total offense &emsp;&emsp;37/64 36/485 Punting &emsp;&emsp;6/33.3 &emsp;&emsp;0/0.0 Penalties &emsp;&emsp;0/0 &emsp;&emsp;1/10 Fumbles &emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;2/0 &emsp;&emsp;1/0 RUSHING: Tallmadge — Logan Miles 8-7, Kayden Currey 2-7, Elijah Williams 1-7, Lucas Sferra 1-2, Team 1-(-1), Gino Lagani 1-(-2), Devin Bell 1-(-4), Chase Waller 1-(-7), Braxton Dente 4-(-18). Highland — Myser 10-104, Lazar 3-70, Levi Clarke 2-34, Frankie Iannaggi 2-17, Gibb 5-69, Pulice 3-6, Foust 1-1, Joseph Oriti 1-(-1). PASSING: Tallmadge — Dente 6-12-44-2, Waller 3-5-29-0. Highland — Gibb 8-9-185-1. RECEIVING: Tallmadge — Harry Jividen 2-30, Quenton Johns 2-12, Robbie Reid 1-12, Sferra 3-10, Elijah Williams 1-9. Highland — Gerding 4-104, Nick Dobkowski 2-48, Myser 1-21, Foust 1-12.