Flyers of '81 first MAC team to taste playoffs

It's difficult to fathom a time when Midwest Athletic Conference football teams weren't winning state championships left and right, or that just making the playoffs was almost unthinkable.

"You definitely had to go unbeaten in the regular season and just hope for the best," recalled former Marion Local head coach Ken Meyer, who guided the Flyers to the league's first post-season appearance in 1981. "For the most part, teams just concentrated on winning the league and that was typically the end of the season. When we picked up enough computer points in 1981 to make the playoffs, it was new territory for all of us."

The Flyers steamrolled through the regular season at 9-0-1 and boasted the top offense and defense in the MAC when they moved into week 11 against the number-one ranked Waynesville Spartans.

"We knew we had an opportunity to do something that no other team in Mercer County or in the MAC had done and that was to win a playoff game," Meyer explained. "Waynesville was pretty intimidating when they came onto the field with all of their faces painted up in eye black and what not, but we knew we just needed to play within ourselves. We had great support behind us, so we just went out and played our game."

Flyer fans had little to cheer about in the first few seconds of the battle as they watched Waynesville's Clyde Winsted glide past their defense for a 73-yard touchdown on the first snap of the game. Thankfully Waynesville's two-point conversion was stuffed, but bad luck reared its head once again when the Flyers' fumbled near midfield on their first offensive play. Fortunately the turnover wasn't costly, though, as the Flyer defense forced a punt just a few plays later.

"A huge trademark of this team, which I still feel holds true for Marion Local football today, is that we didn't get down on ourselves when things didn't go our way," Meyer pointed out. "We had plenty of ups and downs throughout the season and good teams battled through that. We did a great job all season of keeping our focus and not allowing panic to set in."

Team captain Mike Moeller swiped a Spartan pass near the end of the first period and within seven plays, first team All-MAC running back Mark Schaefer bruised across the goal line, knotting the game at six points. Kicker Peter Lunde boomed his 28th extra point of the year to put his team in command 7-6, and later in the quarter, the Flyers strung together a beautiful 10-play series, which culminated with a two-yard plunge by quarterback Matt Ranly. The scoring drive was highlighted by Ranly tossing a pair of critical first downs to Dennis Piekenbrock and Steve Prenger.

"I think the balance that we had offensively with both the run and the pass was a very crucial aspect in the success we enjoyed that season," commented Prenger. "I still feel to this day that the more balanced a team is, the more successful they will be. You still need a coaching staff though that believes in their players and I don't feel our coaching staff got the credit they deserved – they believed in us and trusted us to go out and do our jobs each week."

With the Flyers in charge 13-6, defenses prevailed throughout the third quarter before things got interesting in the final 12 minutes of action. Staring at a fourth down and five at Marion Local's 25-yard line, a Waynesville pass attempt was inadvertently deflected into the Spartan receiver's hands at the one-yard line. One play later, it was a one-point game, but it stayed that way after Waynesville failed to connect on their second two-point conversion of the game when Gary and Mike Moeller snuffed it out short of the goal line.

"We had great teamwork on defense - everyone pulled their own and played at 110% on every play," Prenger remarked. "We all believed in our coaches and more than anything else, we believed in one another and knew our play would take care of itself. You need to have some attitude on defense and believe me, we definitely had some attitudes on defense!"

The Flyers put the game in the deep freeze on the ensuing drive as Schaefer, who rushed for 111 yards in the battle, revved things up with three carries for 20 yards. On third-down-and-seven, Ranly hit Brian Albers with a bullet, which allowed him to advance to the Spartan 22-yard line. A few moments later, the junior first team All-MAC quarterback calmly rolled from the pocket on third down and hooked up with Greg Garmann in the end zone. Lunde's PAT put his team in command 20-12, a score by which they eventually went on to win.

"There was definitely a celebration after the game. We read all about Waynesville in the Dayton papers that week and no one gave us much of a chance to win," Prenger advised. "It is pretty cool to look back on it being the first playoff win for the league. We believed in each other and in our coaches and didn't point fingers after they scored on the first play of the game. We just turned around and said 'now it is our turn' and went out and did what we needed to do in order to win." 

In the 34 years since that cool, moonlit November evening in Huber Heights, Marion Local has won nearly 60 more playoff games, but for Flyer fans it is difficult to forget the moment it all began.