Dalton football defies odds to reach Division VI regional semifinals

When the 2025 Dalton football season eventually ends, here’s a suggested title for the highlight video: “Against All Odds.”

The No. 6-seeded Bulldogs (9-3), who will host No. 7 Garaway (10-2) in a Division VI, Region 21 semifinal game Friday, Nov. 14, are working to extend their season as long as possible.

Just reaching the third round of the playoffs is quite a feat considering all of the adversity Dalton has faced.

Reid Geibel, who wasn’t hired until late May, is the program’s third head coach in three years.

Dalton has just five seniors and lost its “Top Dawg” — standout running back/linebacker Jaxon Ryder — to a torn ACL in week three.

The Bulldogs proceeded to lose the next two weeks to Smithville and Hillsdale, then dropped a week eight contest at Norwayne.

Players could have checked out and started thinking about playing basketball or the offseason. However, this scrappy, play-for-the-seniors team never lost its drive or unity.

Ryder worked his way back from a torn ACL and PCL to return on a limited basis against Norwayne and has kept getting better each week since. And Dalton is now one of the state’s most unlikely teams to be hosting a week 13 playoff game.

“It’s something remarkable, something that’s gonna stick with me forever,” senior two-way tackle Mitchell Reynolds said. “We just want to keep going, keep playing with the brotherhood that we’ve built these past four years.”

Dalton had its best season in school history when it finished 13-2 as Div. VII state runner-up in 2023 under coach Broc Dial, who stepped down after that season and is now at Tuslaw.

Ray Leek took over last year and directed the Bulldogs to a 10-4, Div. VI regional runner-up finish before leaving to take the Wooster job.

Geibel, who had previously been an assistant coach in the program, turned out to be the perfect choice to step in and get the 2025 team to believe in itself.

“When I got the job, my first conversation I had with these guys, I said, ‘This is about the seniors, and we play for the seniors,’” Geibel said. “We have seven other coaches who believe that too. There were times during the season we were playing four or five sophomores just because of injuries. It's just been really cool to see how the kids have grown and matured through adversity.”

Geibel or any coach would obviously prefer to have more than five seniors on a football team, but the first-year head coach couldn’t ask for better leaders than the small but mighty quintet of Ryder, Reynolds, Conner Mori (RB-LB), Aiden Pelfrey (TE-LB) and Corbin Lehman (OL-DL).

“Since that Norwayne loss, we've been talking about extending the season one more week for our seniors,” Geibel said. “How long can we let our seniors keep playing?

“Now we're in the third round of the playoffs. After winning at home in the first round (43-7 over Columbiana) and traveling in week two (34-15 win at Columbia), they get another chance to play on our home field. It’s just very special for our team and especially those five seniors.”

Ryder led the win at Columbia on a foggy night with 16 carries for 165 yards and two TDs. Despite missing the equivalent of about five games, Ryder leads Dalton with 103 carries for 835 yards and 12 TDs.

“Jaxon went through five weeks of rehab just to be able to come back and play with a brace,” Geibel said. “There is pain with what he has, but he's just fighting through it. It’s a special story.”

Reynolds plays left tackle and defensive tackle, but he moved to defensive end last week to help stop Columbia’s smashmouth, double-wing rushing attack.

“Mitchell played without a doubt his best game ever in that regional quarterfinal up at Columbia,” Geibel said. “He's just grown so much as a leader. There’s a reason why he was voted a captain.”

Mori leads the team with 103 tackles — including 24 tackles for loss — and has two interceptions. He’s also carried the ball 81 times for 415 yards and eight TDs.

“Conner Mori is our defensive leader and a big reason we’ve won our first two playoff games,” Geibel said. “He's our middle linebacker, leading tackler and does all the communicating to get people lined up.”

Pelfrey has a team-best four interceptions and has 53 tackles. On offense he leads the way with 42 receptions for 501 yards and has two TD grabs.

Lehman is a two-way tackle for an offense that’s been balanced between the run (202 yards per game) and pass (159).

Junior quarterback Carter Hignight has done an outstanding job as the field general despite playing in his third different offensive system in as many years and dealing with many lineup changes due to injuries.

Hignight, 6-foot-2, 170 pounds, is 165-for-239 passing for 1,870 yards and 13 TDs while rushing 99 times for 435 yards and six more scores. In the playoff-opening win over Columbiana, Hignight was a perfect 14-for-14 passing for 203 yards and three scores.

“Carter is a top-quality person and a student of the game,” said Geibel, who was a quarterback himself at Tusky Valley and Heidelberg College and whose son Brady Geibel was a quarterback at Garaway and is now a redshirt freshman at Div. I Furman. “We’ve put a lot on his shoulders, and he’s really grown in the mental part of it, from being able to communicate the play to our team through code words and being able to read a defense.”

It’s been a balanced attack with Ethan Raber adding 64 rushes for 435 yards and six TDs while Jackson Oswald, Gage Stitt, Brady McFarren and Reese Lecon all have 16 or more receptions.

Lecon, a sophomore, is another player who’s shown great commitment to the team. He suffered a broken collarbone in week one and worked his way back into the lineup toward the end of the regular season.

“We started off very strong, kind of slowed down and now we've come back even stronger,” Hignight said. “We’ve got all our guys back, and we're ready to play.

“People weren't really counting on us (winning in the playoffs) with a new coach and losing a lot of seniors. We've proven that we're (Div. VI playoff) contenders. (Coach Geibel) has done a remarkable job bringing us together since the first day he got the job, and we all kind of took it and ran.”