CANTON — Levi Davis has done nearly everything a player can do on a football field.
He has thrown the ball. He has run the ball. He has earned All-Ohio honors and is a 2025 “Mr. Football” finalist.
The only hill left for the Orange High School senior to climb is to win a state title.
Davis and the Pioneers will have that opportunity Friday at 7:30 p.m. against Cincinnati St. Xavier in the Division I championship game at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton.
Davis, a 6-foot, 187-pound dual-threat weapon headed to Ohio University, has keyed the best season in Orange history, a school that opened in 2003.
The starting point guard for the Pioneer’s state championship basketball team last season, Davis has passed for more than 2,000 yards and rushed for more than 1,000 this season, accounting for 32 total touchdowns.
In a 28-0 state semifinal win over perennial power Lakewood St. Ed on Friday night, Davis ran for 78 yards and threw for 75, compiled 153 yards of total offense and two touchdowns.
Senior running back Lucas Fickell (6-0, 205) led the ground attack with 106 yards on 28 carries.
If Orange wins a state title, it will become the first school to turn the double-state championship feat in the same calendar year since Trotwood in 2019, when it beat Mansfield Senior in overtime of the Division III finals in Canton.
It’s been a rapid rise at Orange for coach Wes Schroeder in just his second year with the Pioneers. Orange posted a 9-3 record in his first season, including a playoff win against Olentangy High School.
Coming into this season, Schroeder had been a head coach for the past seven years at Allen East High School, Granville High School, and Orange, compiling a 61-18 overall record and an 8-6 playoff record.
His teams have won five league championships — 2024 at Orange, 2023, 2022, and 2021 at Granville, and 2019 at Allen East — along with a 2021 regional championship at Granville.
The Pioneers face another perennial power in the state championship game. St. Xavier is making its eighth appearance in the state finals and have won four championships, the most recent in 2020.
The Bombers beat Middletown, 21-6, in a semifinal game played at Dayton’s Welcome Stadium.
St. Xavier has been in a revenge tour this postseason. The Bombers two losses came to arch-rival Cincinnati Moeller, 30-13, on Sept. 19, and the very next week to Cincinnati Elder, 21-13.
But the Bombers got even with both in the playoffs, beating Moeller, 17-13, and Elder the following week in the regional finals, 42-34.
St. Xavier is led by coach Steve Specht, now in his 22nd year. He is the school’s all-time winningest coach and piloted his squads to all four state championships in school history.
