Columbus Grove’s Kylan Mayes, middle, bursts through the line on his way to Bluffton quarterback Tayte Giesige on Friday. The Bulldogs claimed the Northwest Conference football championship and an undefeated regular season.
Jessica Trinko | The Lima News
COLUMBUS GROVE — At 6-foot, 270 pounds, it’s hard to miss Columbus Grove’s Kylan Mayes on the football field.
Then you see him play defensive tackle. Offensive linemen land flat on the ground. Quarterbacks try in vain to scramble away from his long reach. The senior wearing No. 52 is one reason the Bulldogs finished an undefeated regular season, which emphatically wrapped up Friday with a 42-0 win against previously undefeated Bluffton.
“Kylan is so special. You just don’t give defensive lineman credit like you should,” said his coach, Andy Schafer. “He is clearly the Northwest Conference defensive player of the year. If anyone doubts that, I have no idea what they’re thinking.”
Mayes picked up that honor this week after a season that included team-highs with seven sacks, nine tackles for losses and 12 quarterback hurries. That’s despite opposing teams being smart enough to double-team or even triple-team Mayes, who finished the regular season with 74 tackles. He was also first-team all-NWC offensive line as an offensive tackle.
“Our defense and offense really play well off each other,” Mayes said Friday after the defense had three straight three-and-outs while limiting a high-powered Bluffton offense to win the school’s 17th NWC championship. “Going out there after a score gives you momentum to come back out and get another stop and give the offense another chance at points on the board.”
The Bulldogs completed their second undefeated regular season of the decade, joining the 2021 team. Ranked No. 2 in the final Division VII Associated Press poll, Columbus Grove (10-0) begins its playoff odyssey against North Baltimore (4-6) at 7 p.m. Friday at Grove’s Clymer Stadium.
The Bulldogs have been to the state semifinals three of the past four seasons and want a shot at the school’s second state championship, potentially joining the 2003 squad.
Mayes could play a big part in that. He gets the fans going with amazingly athletic defensive plays in nearly every game. Against Bluffton, it seemed as if he climbed a ladder to knock down one high pass attempt by Bluffton QB Tayte Giesige.
“When I saw it on film, I said, ‘Holy cow,’” Grove defensive coordinator Andrew Kohls said. “He just snagged that out of the air against a pretty good, athletic quarterback.”
Those are the kinds of plays that catch your attention. He had two of them against Patrick Henry, avenging a 2023 loss to the Patriots with an interception and a fumble recovery both in the first quarter of a 27-13 win.
On the interception, teammate Sam Groch tipped Patriot quarterback Lincoln Creager’s pass up into the air, and Mayes nabbed it midair and rumbled down the sideline for nearly 20 yards.
Mayes, who has college offers from Adrian College and Heidelberg University but hasn’t chosen where he’ll continue his football career yet, said that was his best game yet.
“He seems to have one sack every game when we really need it, at a huge, huge point of the game,” Kohls said. “That’s one of my favorite parts of him.”
He’s just as solid on the offensive line, often driving defenders back 5 to 10 yards on plays as part of an offensive line that makes holes so big, star running back Trenton Barraza said Friday, “You could drive monster trucks through those holes.”
It shouldn’t surprise people, given that he’s also a Bulldog basketball player who can dunk and a successful thrower for the school’s track and field team.
It even turns game officials into fans, Schafer said after an Oct. 4 win against Fort Loramie, when he noted Mayes’ “motor on defense is pretty special.”
“Not very often do I have the officials come up to me and say, ‘Where’s that kid going to go? Where’s that kid going to play?’ for a lineman,” Schafer said. “He’s certainly caught the attention of a lot of people.”
He certainly caught the attention of his teammates too, who saw how hard the chiseled Mayes worked to become so dominant.
“He’s a big kid. He definitely earns it. He’s in the weight room, he’s busting his balls,” fellow senior Grant Eversole said, noting he’s seen his teammate bench-press 340 pounds.
Mayes acknowledged his weight room work paid off, saying, “You need pretty good strength to move people back. Sometimes you’re stopping someone with an elusive move.”
The work makes him better, but it also makes his teammates better. Those double-teams open up opportunities for others, especially on blitz plays.
That’s helped middle linebacker Landen Huston on his way to a team-high 86 tackles and fellow defensive tackle Layton Blankemeyer’s 65 tackles with eight tackles for loss and three sacks, to go with 11 quarterback hurries.
“Earlier in the year, our defense was playing with fire,” Eversole said. “Everyone’s rallying to the ball, everyone’s form tackling. We slowly started slowing down from that. … I think (Friday) we really hit that goal of rallying to the ball and group tackling the guy.”
Reach David Trinko at 567-242-0467 or on Twitter @Lima_Trinko.
