DaOne Owens, Dorian Pringle lead Massillon past Valdosta to open 2023 football season

Massillon ended the game on a 28-3 run after trailing 14-0

MASSILLON, Ohio - The Massillon Tigers started their season-opening game against Valdosta (Georgia) slowly, but unlike the last three seasons, they fought back to take home a win, 28-17.  

After Valdosta scored two touchdowns in the first quarter to take a 14-0 lead, the Tigers got on the board as Dorian Pringle scored from one yard out to cut the lead in half midway through the second quarter.

Quarterback DaOne Owens scored on a 69-yard run on the first play of the third quarter to tie the game and Pringle scored from 21 yards to give Massillon its first lead of the game at 21-14 late in the third. Owens added a 65-yard touchdown run for insurance early in the fourth quarter.

Owens led the offensive attack by carrying the ball 13 times for 241 yards and a pair of touchdowns and also completed five passes for 59 yards. Pringle had 65 yards on 13 carries and the two scores.

The win snapped a three-game losing streak in season openers for Massillon, who lost to St. Edward in 2020, Pickerington North in 2021 and Archbishop Moeller last season.

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Massillon quarterback DaOne Owens runs away from Valdosta defenders on Friday night is a 28-17 Massillon win. (Photo: Jeff Harwell) / Jeff Harwell, SBLive Sports

Five Takeaways

1. Massillon gets help from Copley pipeline

Owens transferred to Massillon after being named All-Ohio second team in Division III last season at Copley, where he threw for 2,594 yards and 24 touchdowns and rushed for 1,422 yards and 17 scores.

Pringle and his brothers DeAirre and Daylan transferred to Massillon from Copley before last season. DeAirre graduated in June, while Dorian is a senior this year and Daylan is a junior.

2. The quarterback situation at Massillon

After leading the Tigers to the state semifinals as a sophomore last season, Jalen Slaughter got some competition for his job when Owens transferred. While Slaughter got the start Friday night, the offense seemed to move better with Owens at the controls.

"DaOne is special, he can throw the football, but but he's really special running the football," Massillon head coach Nate Moore said. "And we're able to do some things with him in the quarterback run game, specifically with options and equates numbers, it gets man coverage and that he's able to exploit it." 

But Moore also said that he knew both quarterbacks would play Friday and they just had to go with the feel of the game as to which one would be on the field. He also is happy that both quarterbacks seem to understand the game plan and are willing to accept it.

"We executed our plan, pretty much how we how we thought it was gonna go, which is we don't know how it's gonna go," Moore said. "We gotta get out to see what's working. And we didn't know if one quarterback was gonna play 50 snaps and the other was going to play 10 or if it was going to be 25 and 25. Luckily, we have two guys that are great teammates that want to win ball games and don't care who gets the publicity or who scores the touchdowns. Those guys just want to win."

3. Dorian Pringle does it all

The 6-foot, 215-pound senior was all over the field on Friday night and gave Valdosta fits on both sides of the ball.

Offensively, he had 13 carries for 65 yards and two touchdowns. And defensively, he was second on the team in tackles with nine and added a sack and two tackles for loss.

Massillon's head coach just couldn't say enough positive things about the Bowling Green University commit.

"Dorian is one of the best football players I've ever been around," Moore said. He's so tough. Obviously he is an incredible linebacker, not just his combination of strength and speed but his ability to diagnose the offense and read his keys. And then he's such a heavy tackler. And he's a great running back. And he runs heavy. And he's an honor student. There's so many great things to say about him."

4. Just for kicks

Massillon senior kicker Vinny Keller booted the opening kickoff the game into the end zone for a touchback. That was a sign of things to come for Keller on the night.

On his five kickoffs, two were touchbacks and the others traveled to inside the 5-yard-line, giving Valdosta less than desirable field position as the kicks gave Massillon's special teams time to get down in coverage and Valdosta averaged just under 12 yards per return.

Keller was also perfect on his PATs, knocking all four through the uprights. 

5. A game rich in history

The game between Massillon and Valdosta might have been the first meeting between the two teams but it was one that had been years in the making.

Valdosta entered the game having won the most games in the history of high school football in the country, entering the season with 944 wins, while Massillon is fourth on that list with 932 wins prior to the season.

"It was a great experience, I think that's probably the national game of the week," Moore said. "I know that every college coach in America was was tuned in. So it's a great opportunity for our kids and our program. It's easy to say now but win or lose that was a great experience."