West Liberty-Salem leaned on its defense and rushing attack to grab a 27-10 win over visiting Cedarville on homecoming night Friday.
The Tigers are now 3-2 on the season. Cedarville falls to 2-3.
WL-S ran for 291 yards on 43 carries and limited the Indians to 218 yards of total offense.
Junior running back Gabe McGill rushed for 110 yards and three touchdowns on 16 carries and also returned an interception for a score to power the Tigers.
Josh Wilcoxon went for 90 yards on 12 rushes and Miles Hostetler contributed 70 rushing yards on 10 attempts for WL-S.
It was a tightly played first half.
The Tigers went up 7-0 midway through the opening quarter on a 10-yard TD run by McGill and an extra-point kick by D.J. Yoder.
Cedarville tied the game at 7-7 on a fumble return for a touchdown with 3:37 left in the first period.
McGill came up with a big defensive play for the next score. He stepped in front of a Jackson Pyles pass and returned the interception for a TD, giving the Tigers a 14-7 lead with 3:23 left until halftime.
Cedarville tacked on a 28-yard field goal by Jackson Howdyshell on the final play of the first half to make the score 14-10 at the intermission.
It was all Tigers in the second half.
McGill found the end zone on a 22-yard TD run late in the third quarter to push the WL-S lead to 21-10.
McGill capped off his big night with a 42-yard TD sprint with 6:07 left in the game.
The WL-S defense held Cedarville to 79 rushing yards on 26 attempts. Cedarville completed just 12-of-34 passes for 139 yards.
The Tigers are back in action Friday at home against Fairbanks for the first Ohio Heritage Conference North division game of the season.