Mathews returns to tournament for first time since 2022
Mathews returns to tournament for first time since 2022
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Since his promotion to head coach before the 2023 season, Matt Polta had not been able to lead the Mathews football team to a winning record, let alone a playoff berth.
This season, however, has seen trends bucked and Mathews back into the postseason for the first time in four years.
"It was a tough road to get here," Polta said. "We were young, going through some tough seasons, but the perseverance, the work in the weight room - it’s all paying off now. I think the kids are really excited, and they’re proud about all the work that they’ve done and where they're at, at this point in the season. There's nothing better than being in the playoffs.
The Mustangs are one of the more than 20 area teams to qualify for the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) football playoffs this year, and they earned one of the 12 spots in Division VII, Region 25, in dramatic fashion.
Through seven games, Mathews boasted a 5-2 record, eclipsing its combined win total from the previous two seasons. Back-to-back decisive losses to Ashtabula St. John and Grand Valley, though, left the Mustangs needing a Week 10 win at Conotton Valley, which also needed a win, to make it into the playoffs.
Down by one at halftime and tied at 14 entering the fourth quarter, Mathews had a 21-14 lead late in the game when the Rockets scored a touchdown and, as they always do, kept their offense on the field for a two-point attempt.
"That game came down to the very last play," Polta said. "One of our players swatted down a pass in the end zone and prevented them from scoring, and we ended up winning by one point. That excitement, that momentum that we now have from that last win carries over into this week, and I think that stuff is huge, having that feeling at the end of the season and going into a game this important."
The Mustangs have not played a playoff game since a 42-0 loss to Springfield on Oct. 28, 2022. Just six wins followed over the next three seasons, Polta's first three on the job.
"At a small school like this, you have your ups and downs. You get a big class, things go well for a while, and then you get a little bit smaller numbers, and you get a young group, and you have your ups and downs," Polta said. "But right now, the group that we have, have been playing since they were freshmen. A bulk of them are juniors, and this is what happens. You get into this contention where it was tough for a couple years, but then you’re on top again.
"Watching the program over the years, the changes with the coaches and stuff, the philosophy never really changed. This is small-school football. We’re tough, we’re gonna play mean, all that great stuff. That stuff’s always remained the same."
As the 11th seed in Region 25, the Mustangs are on the road Friday in Ashtabula, where they will meet Northeastern Conference rival St. John for the second time this season.
The Heralds won the first matchup between the teams 28-6 in Vienna on Oct. 9. The win marked the third straight for St. John against Mathews, which has been outscored 93-6 in those three games.
Before the win streak, the Mustangs had largely dominated when they and the Heralds met, with Mathews winning all but once after they resumed their annual game in 2014.
"They’ve really got some talented kids in there now," Polta said of St. John. "We played them when they first came back to football. It was over 10 years ago, and they were struggling. And you see them grow, and you see a new coach come in, and they’re getting good players on the team. It’s great to see that for them, but having them beat us these last couple years, and especially last year, was a rough one. The kids, they want their shot to beat them. And I think we could do that."
With a second chance at unseating the Heralds, who finished the season on a four-game win streak and with the sixth seed, Polta is eager to correct some of the flaws he saw in his team in the meeting three weeks ago.
If he can do that, Polta, who has been with Mathews for 15 years as a coach, will be the first man in program history to lead the Mustangs to a playoff win.
"The two old adages of football: blocking and tackling wins games. ... We let him get out of a lot of things because we didn’t tackle well," Polta said. "So if we do those two things right, I think that we should have a lot of success."