MADEIRA, Ohio −Wyoming High School hasn't lost a football game in the Cincinnati Hills League since the current senior class was in the fifth grade. Marvin Lewis was still coaching the Bengals, Tommy Tuberville was still in Cincinnati and not yet a U.S. Senator from Alabama and Bryan Price's Reds lost 94 games.
It's seven years and 67 straight now in the win column for coach Aaron Hancock's Cowboys, who broke a 7-7 halftime deadlock to defeat Madeira 23-7 Friday night. In doing so they handed the Mustangs their first loss of the season and won their sixth straight CHL championship.
"We knew it was going to be a good ballgame," Hancock said. "You've got to earn the right to be champion and those guys did it in the second half. These kids grind it out. There's been a lot of close games in that run and we're going to keep it running."
Wyoming running back C.J. Hester gave the Cowboys the lead for good with a third-quarter score and D.J. Gray's 31-yard jaunt iced the game later in the fourth quarter. Hester racked up 351 yards on 36 carries.
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"C.J. Hester is the best running back in the state of Ohio," Hancock said. "Everyone knows he's getting the football and he can still make tremendous runs."
Said Hester, "It's just being patient, trusting our game plan. It's the game of football. You're not always going to get the big ones but every little thing matters."
Defensively, after Madeira matched Wyoming's opening score, they didn't return to the end zone again. Over 10 games, Wyoming has surrendered but 28 points.
"They play as one unit and there's no selfishness," Hancock said. "If you have selfless football players, you're going to have a lot of success."
The Cowboys' last loss in the CHL came in 2015 to Reading. Madeira hasn't beaten the men in the horseshoe helmets in nearly 10 years. The previous Mustang teams to make it through the league without a loss came in the autumns of 2011 and 2012.
"We played really, really well," Madeira coach Chris Stewart said. "When you're going to beat a team like Wyoming, you have to play almost a perfect game. They were a little bit stronger than us and they pushed us around a bit but we held our own and were fighting for a chance there in the second half."
Wyoming chewed up over five minutes on their opening drive which included a long Hester run but stalled a few times on the Madeira 1-yard line. Finally, on 4th-and-goal, quarterback Quaid Hauer was pushed in for the game's first score. It didn't dampen the spirits of Madeira much as Peter Breidenbach quickly connected on a 69-yard scoring pass to Max Autry to liven up the home side of the field.
Surprisingly, those would be the only scores of the half. Max Autry ran the Mustangs into scoring position late in the first half, but a 40-yard field goal attempt by Jake Isgrig was short.
After Jack Randman had some first-half snaps, Wyoming went back to Hauer at quarterback to start the second half. On a 3rd-and-19 he completed a long pass to Gray to get the Cowboys to their own 47-yard line. From there, Hester ran the ball to the 4, then rumbled in for the tie-breaking score midway through the third quarter.
Late in the frame, Wyoming would play add-on as Gray took the 31-yard adventurous route to the end zone.
Sophomore Carter Rummer made up for a missed extra point in the fourth by adding a 27-yard field goal for a 23-7 lead. Wyoming had the ball deep in Madeira territory at the game's end but took a knee to end the contest.
Wyoming's Hester, a Western Michigan commit, had rushed for 650 yards in his previous two games and was 270 away from 2,000 on the season coming into the CHL battle. For the second straight season, he's a two-grand man after rumbling for 353 at Madeira.
His future Western Michigan coaches were on hand to watch the game that saw No. 33 break several long runs despite being periodically stopped.
"I think I played phenomenal," Hester said. "There's always some things you can correct at the end of the game. Some calls didn't go my way, but we got the 'W' and here we are. Now we're going to focus on playoffs and be 1-0 each and every week."
Wyoming clinched the top seed in Division IV, Region 16 and is set to host a playoff game next weekend against CHCA based on JoeEitel.com. In Division V, 9-1 Madeira appears to be set at the No. 5 seed by OHSAA computations and could host Gamble Montessori as the No. 12 seed.
"They're a potential state champion football team," Stewart said of Wyoming. "To be able to compete at that level and keep it close, it says a lot about our team and the character of our players and where we can go with this if we want to."
Wyoming 23, Madeira 7
MADEIRA 7 0 0 0 7
WYOMING 7 0 7 9 23
W - Hauer 1-yard run (Rummer kick)
M - Breidenbach 69-yard pass to Autry (Isgrig kick)
W - Hester 4-yard run (Rummer kick)
W - Gray 31-yard run (extra point failed)
W - Rummer 27-yard FG
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