Ravenna’s Mark Miller runs out of a tackle attempt during a first-quarter touchdown run.
Paisley Nader/Portage Sports

By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

Mark Miller turned back the clock a little bit on Friday night.

The Ravenna senior spent time as a quarterback throughout his junior high and early high-school career, but has since moved into the backfield as one of the Ravens’ primary ball-carriers while teammate Ethan McKamey took over the signal-calling duties.

With a hand injury limiting McKamey’s ability to consistently handle snaps, Ravenna head coach Brian “Fuzz” Coman made a decision to move Miller to quarterback for Friday’s road matchup at Cuyahoga Falls.

Ravenna lineman Bradley Davis lifts teammate Mark Miller into the air to celebrate a touchdown.
Paisley Nader/Portage Sports

“We wanted to take care of Ethan and we knew it was not something new for Mark to do, so we just felt it was the right thing to do this week,” Coman said.

Miller proved his coach correct, rushing for 202 yards and four touchdowns (on runs of 37, 6, 12 and 35 yards), leading the Ravens to a thrilling — and sometimes chaotic — 47-36 victory over the Black Tigers.

Miller also completed 5-of-9 passes for 64 yards, including a pair of 20-plus yard strikes to Andrew Mladek on a pair of crucial third-down conversions early in the game that helped the Ravens grab an early lead.

“Mark is one of our smartest guys on the field,” Coman said. “He always has been. He even calls out all of the defensive-back coverage for us. He knows the offense inside and out so to move him to quarterback was just a matter of remembering and working on his footwork and positioning.”

Meanwhile, McKamey still had an important role for Ravenna (4-4, 2-3 Metro Athletic Conference), rushing for 62 yards on 12 carries and scoring on an important 8-yard touchdown run in the third quarter, as well as returning the final onside kick attempt by Falls 51 yards for a score to end the game.

In what turned out to be a high-scoring game, Ravenna took control early with a 14-0 lead on its first two possessions. Miller ran in a 37-yard touchdown, which was later followed by Carsyn Swauger’s 3-yard push over the goal line.

From that point forward, the Black Tigers (3-5, 1-4 Metro Athletic Conference) remained within one score on five different occasions, trailing 14-6, 14-12, 20-12, 27-19 and 34-27.

Every single time, Ravenna had an answer.

Maybe the biggest coming in the third quarter, leading 20-12, the Ravens found themselves on their own 7-yard line after an interception by Miller on a fourth-down play for Cuyahoga Falls.

A group of Ravenna defenders wrap up Cuyahoga Falls running back Josh Bell.
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Ravenna then put its trust in the run game and went to work.

The result was an 11-play, 93-yard drive that ended when McKamey dashed over the goal line from 8 yards out that extended Ravenna’s advantage from 20-12 to 27-12.

All 11 plays of the drive were run plays, which was be design.

“That was a really important drive for us. We needed that,” Coman said. “I told (offensive coordinator) Lester (Carney) to put a drive together that leaned on the running game and ran off some clock. We wanted to keep the ball in Mark’s hands as much as we could, but we also wanted to keep running the ball up the middle, because I felt like we could have success there. On one of our first-half touchdowns, I saw that they put everyone in the box to try to stop us, but we still gained four yards and got the score, so I was confident we could do more of that.”

The numbers prove that Coman’s instinct and belief in his players was accurate.

The Ravens finished the game with 330 yards rushing, with 203 of those coming in the second half when the Ravens attempted just one pass and ran the ball 27 times.

Another one of Ravenna’s big answers came in the fourth quarter with under 4 minutes to play.

After the Tigers cut their deficit to 34-27 on a 4-yard run by running back Josh Bell, which was followed up by a 2-point conversion run by Bell, Miller stepped up for the Ravens again.

Miller took a direct snap, ran off his left tackle into space, then weaved and jetted past the Tigers’ secondary for a 35-yard score that pushed Ravenna back up 41-27 with 3:09 to play.

Cuyahoga Falls quarterback Waseem Mustafa crosses the goal line for a 4-yard touchdown run in the first quarter.
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For Coman, to repeatedly watch his team persevere in times of adversity on Friday night, was a point of pride for the coach.

“All week long we talked about the fact that some of our goals are still out there for us,” Coman said. “If we win a few games, we can get to Week 11 and that is what these guys want. They want to work for that.”

Cuyahoga Falls was led offensively by junior quarterback Waseem Mustafa, who rushed for 112 yards and three touchdowns, and also completed 10-of-20 passes for 181 yards and a score. His top target through the air was Emmet Berry, who had three receptions for 79 yards and a touchdown.