Deja Vu all over again for Redmen

Very few times during the course of a high school football season does a team get to 'wrong a right.'

But for the Bellevue Redmen Saturday night in its first round playoff game against familiar foe Tiffin Columbian, the wait time is only eight days to get that shot at avenging a loss.

It was just Friday that the Tornadoes visited Bellevue Athletic Field and came away with a 26-14 win in which a Northern Ohio League title share was at stake for both teams and now the harbin points fell into place just right and the teams will do it again Saturday at the exact same venue.

While it is common for area teams to have playoff rematches with an opponent, Saturday will mark just the third time in area history a team has played in Week 10 and the first round of the playoffs in back-to-back weeks and ironically, the first two were also bitter rivals just like the Tornadoes-Redmen series.

Fremont Ross and Sandusky did in back in 1983 while just last season Monroeville and St. Paul also met for the Firelands Conference title Week 10 and played the next week in the playoffs.

"We talked to the kids about that second chance," Bellevue head coach Ed Nasonti said. "Our goal was to make the playoffs and we made it, but there aren't many times you get a chance to avenge a loss and I think they are excited about that."

The sting of Friday's loss to the Tornadoes that cost the Redmen a share of the league title has been put in the rear view mirror according to Nasonti, who is guiding the Redmen to the playoffs for the eighth time in 18 seasons.

"We are excited about being in the top four of 31 teams in our region," Nasonti said. "We put last week's game behind us in terms of our disappointment and look at it in terms of what we can learn from the game and move forward."

What will the team move forward with?

"There were definitely some things we took from the game," Nasonti said. "Even though we were in Week 10, we're still learning and that says something about our team and our kids. It wasn't one of our better performances, but I was proud of the way our kids fought...it wasn't a lack of effort as to why we got beat."

The Redmen allowed nine sacks by the Columbian defense in the loss, something Nasonti knows will have to change.

Another key for Bellevue will be to avoid giving up a big play by the Tornadoes, as the difference in the game for Columbian proved to be a 70-yard punt return for a touchdown and a fumble recovered in the end zone.

"We have to execute," Nasonti said. "You take away those two plays and it is a 14-12 game, so it's important for us to have positive plays. The defense played OK, but we have to do a better job on special teams and have to execute positive plays on offense."