HAMILTON — One of the area’s most intriguing high school football rivalries — the Butler Bowl — will feature two narratives.
Hamilton is currently enjoying a four-game winning streak. Middletown is focused on snapping a three-game losing streak.
But, per usual, none of that will matter Friday night when they clash in a Greater Miami Conference showdown at Virgil Schwarm Stadium.
“You can throw the records out the window,” Big Blue coach Arvie Crouch said. “Everybody’s going to get their best shot and play the best to their ability. Hopefully the best team wins at the end of the night — and that’s us.”
“We’re embracing the challenge,” Middies coach Kali Jones said. “Forget about records. Forget about all of that stuff. These guys on both sides are going to come ready to play, and they’re going to be ready to go to war.”
Hamilton (5-2, 4-2 GMC) has won seven straight against Middletown (4-3, 3-3 GMC), which last came out victorious in the series on Sept. 26, 2014, in a 24-3 contest. Big Blue beat the Middies 18-14 last season.
“Hamilton is a real opponent with some real guys that are really good players,” Jones said. “They’ve got a really good running back, a big offensive line. They’ve got some good athletes.”
Hamilton is coming off a 42-21 win over Fairfield. Big Blue senior running back Gracen Goldsmith sliced his way through the Indians’ defense with a career-high 244 yards on 29 carries — tying the school record with five touchdowns.
“The program has taken another step, overall,” Crouch said. “I think they were 95% bought in with the program. It takes a while, but as a whole, the program has taken a step and got better.
“They’ve decided that three years of working their tails off tells us we can play with anybody,” Crouch added. “I made the point, ‘You work your ass off, and you guys deserve this.’ They’ve bought into what we’re saying.
“The opportunities in life and wearing the jerseys — whatever jersey they’re wearing — they’re going through the program. I told them what you do while you’re in them impacts your legacy as a player for that school. They really seem to understand that, and it kind of sunk in a little bit. These guys are taking it to another level, man.”
Middletown has been working its way to the next level under Jones, who took over this past offseason following the departure of former coach Don Simpson.
The Middies reeled off four consecutive victories to start the season — which earned them a No. 8 ranking in the Division I state poll heading into Week 5.
Middletown then lost to Lakota West, Lakota East and most recently Mason. Jones labeled those setbacks as different tests for his Middies.
“The (Lakota) West game was a measuring stick as far as where we need to be when it comes to what we want to be with body types, size, strength,” Jones said. “So that was a different kind of animal. Coming out of that was a different test for our program. We got beat, and we just got pushed around. We got bullied. Coming out of that kind of situation is how we were going to respond to the next opponent, the next challenge.
“This past week against Mason, we felt like we had a really good week. We prepped really well with high-energy practices all week. Started off really hot, really on fire with what we needed to do. Then we got hit with some adversity. We kind of got stymied a little bit on offense and had some calls go some ways that we didn’t feel like went in our favor. So we got hit with adversity that we needed to work through and take advantage of the opportunities that we had to kind of put that game away. We did have those opportunities, but we just did not execute at critical moments.”
Middletown operates mainly under a pass-heavy offense. Senior quarterback Jeremiah Landers completes most of his passes to senior receiver Maximillian Johnson, who has 29 catches for a GMC-best 497 yards and six touchdowns.“I’ve always said all along that even though we were ahead of schedule, we still have a long way to go,” Jones said. “We’re still as a coaching staff are still learning our guys and how they respond in certain stages — how they respond coming off of a loss.”
“They’re good,” Crouch noted of Middletown, which sits in the middle of the conference in both points allowed and points per game (22.5-22.8). “They’re well-coached, and they’re very athletic. I just hope we can out-execute them and take care of the ball and cut down the penalties.”
Hamilton touts the second-best defense in the GMC giving up 12.7 points a game behind Lakota West.
“This week, it’s all about us perfecting what we do,” Jones said. “We’ve been pushing the narrative that the Middies control the Middies. There’s certain areas that we need to execute at a high level during critical moments — and that’s adversity. That’s really been our focus is to just mastering the elite level of execution during critical moments. When we feel like we’re doing that, we feel like we’re going to be successful. We’ve got to do that on Friday night against a good program.”
IN THE KNOW
Friday’s game will be streamed on TVHamilton and The Report Ohio’s Facebook pages without a paywall for your viewing pleasures. TVHamilton and The Report Ohio are media partners. … Story and photos will be provided on the JournalNews, which is also a partner of The Report Ohio.
