COLUMBUS GROVE-It was a NWC opener on Friday night when the Spencerville Bearcats battled the Columbus Grove Bulldogs. The Bearcats were bitten by the turnover bug as the Bulldogs forced five turnovers in the 40-0 victory.
“We said that we were either going to get the ball or if they deferred but our game plan was to start with the ball and go down to score,” said Columbus Grove head coach Andy Schafer.
Columbus Grove put their foot on the gas pedal early and often on the scoreboard. The Bulldogs went down the field on the opening drive and scored on a seven yard run by Trenton Barraza but the two point conversion was unsuccessful as it stayed a 6-0 game.
A fumble on the Bearcats snap led to a touchdown pass from Landon Best to Trenton Basinger and the two point conversion made it 14-0 with 7:31 left in the opening quarter. The exclamation point of the quarter was a 65 yard punt return for a touchdown by Barraza to make it 20-0 before the end of the quarter.
“It was frustrating early on when they right down and scored right away but when it got right down to it for us offensively we made too many mistakes ourselves,” said Spencerville head coach Kyle Koenig. “We were just shooting ourselves in the front constantly and when you play a quality team in Grove you can’t be doing that.”
The Bulldogs carried their momentum into the second quarter as Best fired a 10 yard strike to Kyle Hopkins to extend the lead to 27-0 and were far from done in the quarter. Best stayed through the air as he found Zach Reynolds on a seven yard pass to make it 33-0. The hosts found paydirt once more in the half on a four yard run by Best to give them a 40-0 lead at halftime.
The second half was quick as the running clock and both teams went deep into their bench. Neither team found the end zone as the Bulldogs picked up the 40-0 victory.
“I think when we came out in the second half we had a bunch of young guys out there and some of the jv guys got a chance to play and they never gave up,” said Koenig. “We held them to zero points in the second half and played hard and physical.”
Spencerville drops to 2-2 on the season and will host Bluffton next Friday and Columbus Grove will travel to Delphos to take on Jefferson the same night.
Spencerville 0 0 0 0
Columbus Grove 20 20 0 0
Scoring recap
First quarter
7:31 (CG)-7 yard run by Barraza two point conversion failed -6-0 CG
4:51 (CG)-7 yard pass from Best to Basinger two point conversion good-14-0
0:33 (CG)-65 yard punt return from Barraza extra point failed-20-0
Second quarter
10:29 (CG)-10 yard pass from Best to Hopkins extra point good-27-0
6:10 (CG)-7 yard pass from Best to Reynolds extra point failed-33-0
0:14 (CG)-4 yard run Best extra point good-40-0
Total yards
Spencerville:67
Columbus Grove:334
Turnovers
Spencerville:5
Columbus Grove:2
Penalties
Spencerville:1
Columbus Grove:4
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