RIDGEWAY-It was a series of firsts on Friday night as it was the first ever meeting between the Bearcats and the Golden Gophers but it was a battle of two first year head coaches. The Bearcats put together a lead in the second quarter and never looked back in the 28-12 victory.
“Defensively we knew that they were going to try to run the ball,” said Spencerville head coach Kyle Koenig. “We had to try to do some different things and we knew it was important to control the line of scrimmage and I thought we did that for the most part.”
Ridgemont received the opening kickoff and scored early as Clayton Patterson ran a 82 yard kickoff return for a touchdown that gave them a 6-0 lead but the two point conversion was unsuccessful to keep it 6-0.
Spencerville responded with a five yard touchdown run by Carter Layman and the extra point by Carder Orr gave the visitors a 7-6 lead.
Both defenses stood tall toward the end of the quarter but the Bearcats broke out in the second quarter. A 22 yard pass from Orr to Nate Coulter gave them a 14-6 lead and Spencerville went through the air as Orr found freshman Will Sensabaugh one on one to extend the lead to 21-6.
Spencerville allowed just 96 total yards in the first half.
Ridgemont cut into the lead early in the third quarter on a Bearcat turnover on the kickoff and a 49 yard touchdown pass but the two point conversion failed to keep it at 21-12. Ridgemont forced Spencerville on downs and got down to the red zone before the Bearcat defense stiffened to force a turnover on downs.
“One of the things we talked about all week is we have to compete on every single play and that drive in the third quarter where we were able to get that stop it was huge and it shifted the momentum our way and we came down and scored after that,” explained Koenig.
Coulter was able to put a little distance on the lead in the final quarter as a 25 yard touchdown run extended the lead to 28-12. Coulter finished the night with 190 total yards with 150 coming on the ground.
“Nate Coulter is going to be a huge part of the offense and we got a fullback in Carter Layman that runs pretty hard and had a heck of night for us running the ball,” added Koenig.
Head coach Kyle Koenig notched his first career win and it’s the first Spencerville head coach to win their coaching debut since 1969.
Spencerville improves to 1-0 on the season and will have their home opener next Friday when they host the Paulding Panthers.
“I just told our guys that yes we are 1-0 but week one is always ugly and we gotta fix what needs to be fixed and turn around to compete against Paulding next week,” concluded Koenig.
Spencerville 7 – 14 – 0 – 28
Ridgemont 6 – 0 – 6 – 0 – 12
Total yards
Spencerville:326
Ridgemont:202
Turnovers
Spencerville:4
Ridgemont:6
Penalties
Spencerville:11
Ridgemont:9
Scoring recap
1st quarter
11:47-Patterson 82 KOR touchdown-6-0 Ridgemont
9:10-5 yard run Carter Layman pat good-7-6 Spencerville
2nd quarter
6:04-22 yard pass from Orr to Coulter pat good-14-6 Spencerville
2:57-27 yards pass from Orr to Sensabaugh pat good-21-6 Spencerville
3rd quarter
11:47-49 yard pass from Manns to Patterson 2-pt conversion failed-21-12 Spencerville
4th quarter
8:40-25 yard run by Coulter pat good-28-12 Spencerville
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