Banker immediately recalled the moment when he realized no one on the field — not even one of the state’s most tradition-rich defenses — was going to catch speedster Jalin Marshall.
“We pride ourselves at St. X on defense, and after that first game, when you give up close to 500 yards rushing, you’ve got to go back to the drawing board a little bit,” Banker said of the 2012 season opener.
“Jalin was just a freak athlete. When he got in open space, you weren’t catching him.”
On Friday night, Banker won’t be upstairs calling special teams or coaching receivers like he did before. He’ll be in a different role as St. Xavier’s athletic director, overseeing the Bombers as they match up against the Middies for the first time in over a decade.
And on the other sideline? Marshall — now an assistant coach for the Middies — the same player who torched St. Xavier for 312 rushing yards, three touchdowns and a collection of highlights people still talk about.
The matchup is back.
The stakes are bigger.
And University of Dayton’s Welcome Stadium awaits.
St. Xavier and Middletown meet in a Division I state semifinal on Friday, renewing a series that had gone dormant for 13 years but lives vividly in the minds of both Banker and Marshall.
The final score of that 2012 opener — St. Xavier 43, Middletown 39 — hardly tells the story. Middletown racked up 584 total yards, including 497 on the ground, with nearly all of it coming from Marshall’s dazzling blend of speed and improvisation.
Banker recalls one run better than the others.
“Jalin basically ran the option, broke free, and it was probably a 60- or 70-yard run,” Banker said. “And when he got to about the 30, there was a DB running with him. He turned and high-fived a teammate.”
Banker paused, still incredulous.
“I’ve coached at St. X for years,” Banker said. “I’ve never seen a kid high-five a kid while scoring against us.”
The official stats list Marshall with 312 rushing yards and 87 passing — numbers the longtime Bomber assistant still places among the most astonishing performances he has witnessed.
“There’s no one who’s even come close to that individually against us,” Banker said. “We’ve always shut down Colerain’s option, or at least contained it. But no one ever just went off on us like that.”
For Banker, moving into the athletic director’s office didn’t erase the connection to that game or to the program he coached for more than two decades. What he didn’t realize, at least until recently, is just how long it had been since the Bombers and Middies crossed paths.
“Honestly, I didn’t even realize Middletown wasn’t in our region anymore,” Banker said. “They’re the southernmost team in Region 2. We just don’t see GMC teams much because of league scheduling.”
The trend explains the rarity of this matchup. Banker said he believes St. Xavier and Middletown have only met a handful of times since the late 1990s, including the 1998 season in which Middletown beat St. Xavier in Week 1 before the Bombers reeled off 13 straight wins on their way to the state final.
He still remembers that too.
He remembers a lot when it comes to Middletown.
“That program has had some unbelievable athletes over the last 30 or 40 years,” Banker said. “It’s just great to see them back. And it’s great to see us both in the final four.”
What Banker saw firsthand in 2012 didn’t surprise him when Marshall landed at Ohio State, becoming one of the nation’s most dynamic playmakers before moving on to a professional career.
“I thought he was a can’t-miss first-round draft pick,” Banker said. “He was just that kind of athlete.”
Now Marshall returns to Welcome Stadium as a coach, helping guide a Middletown team that has authored one of the program’s most memorable seasons — a journey that has included the school’s first regional championship.
Banker laughs when he considers it.
“Back then, I wasn’t tasked with defending him,” he chuckled. “Thank goodness. … And thank goodness he won’t be playing in this one.”
Friday’s game won’t feature the 18-year-old version of Marshall, but it will feature the echoes of that night — a reminder of when Middletown Middie magic met St. Xavier Bomber discipline, before both sides walked away stunned.
It’s a chance to watch a matchup that feels overdue.
“For us, we’re just happy to be alive,” Banker said. “And I’m sure they are too.”
‘That was the last image’
More than a decade later, Marshall can still see it as clearly as if it were Friday night again.
The field, the silence, the St. Xavier sideline at Nippert Stadium erupting behind him while he sat alone at the 3-yard line, helmet tilted toward the ground.
“That was it,” Marshall recalled. “That was the last image. I was sitting there on the turf with my head down and their team celebrating behind me. I’ll never forget that image.”
Marshall finds himself right in the middle of the storyline he helped write in 2012.
It was a storyline that started with one unforgettable spin move, one high-five and one long night for St. X’s defensive coordinator.
Marshall laughs now at the memory that Banker brought up — the long scramble in which Marshall spun out of traffic, took off and ended up high-fiving his teammate on his way to the end zone.
“I hit a spin move and kind of broke free,” Marshall said. “My teammate was running next to their guy, so we high-fived into the end zone.”
But beneath the viral highlight was something far more important to him.
“Everybody was saying Middletown couldn’t match up with those big Catholic school boys,” Marshall said. “I think it was one of the first couple plays — I took off for about a 70-yard touchdown. That conquered the persona that they were that much better than us.”
That night turned into a shootout. And it ended with Marshall nearly pulling off a miracle.
Trailing late, the Middies had 50 seconds left — hardly ideal for a triple-option offense. So they improvised.
“We went to an empty set,” Marshall said. “My coach just sent me and said, ‘Man, run in circles around them and figure it out.’ We didn’t even have a play call. We just said ‘ready, set, hike.’”
The receivers sprinted downfield, Marshall scrambled across the width of the field, and somehow Middletown made it all the way to the St. X 3-yard line.
The final pass hit the ground. Ballgame.
“That was it,” Marshall said. “I’ll never forget that image.”
Today, Marshall uses that same game — not the heartbreak, but the belief — to inspire Middletown’s 2025 team.
Now an assistant on Middletown’s staff, Marshall has been showing this year’s players film from that 2012 meeting — not the final play, but the fight.
“I put on the film of 2012 when Middletown went up there against those big boys and kind of dominated them,” Marshall said. “It gives them the image of what we can do — not the image of what we can’t do.”
The parallels are impossible to miss — Middletown again is the underdog and again hearing that it can’t possibly match up.
To Marshall, that noise sounds familiar — and hollow.
For a player who won a national championship and played at the sport’s highest levels, nothing this fall has matched what he has felt leading the Middies’ program through a historic season.
Middletown has already won its first regional title, and the city has rallied around a group playing deeper into November than any team in school history.
“When they ask me, is it better winning a championship or coaching one?” Marshall said. “This year, it’s been such a special ride. It’s allowed me to grow as a man and a mentor.
“When you live the right way and do the right things, the things you can accomplish through somebody else are remarkable. There’s no better feeling than putting a young man in a position to be successful.”
After last week’s regional championship win over Wayne, Marshall didn’t sprint around the field or join the celebrations at midfield. He stood back, watched and absorbed everything.
“I sit back and soak it in,” he said. “These young men are from Middletown — I know what they go through at home every day. Seeing them bring this joy to the city is something that can never be replaced.”
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