Bearcats ready to get season going against Ridgemont

SPENCERVILLE-Changes and expectations.

That’s been the feeling of the Spencerville Bearcats throughout the entire offseason and will look to exploit those expectations come Friday night at Memorial Field.

The feel of a jammed pack Memorial Field will await the Spencerville Bearcats tomorrow night when the Ridgemont Golden Gophers come to town.

Spencerville head man Kyle Koenig will be in his second season leading the Bearcats after a 3-8 finish last season. Koenig is excited to see his team begin the season at home.

“It is always exciting to be able to start the year off on your home field,” said Koenig. “Ridgemont is going to be very similar to us in style of play.”

For the Bearcats Koenig knows that this will be a tough hard nose game come tomorrow night.

“They like to run the ball from what we can see from film and they are aggressive on defense,” added Koenig. “It will be a hard nose game and we have to be ready for whatever they throw our way and week 1 is always a toss up because things never go as planned and you need to be prepared to adjust on the fly.”

The Golden Gophers were the Bearcats week 1 opponent last season and it was the Bearcats that picked up the 28-12 victory. Ridgemont went 4-6 last season as they complete in the ever tough NWCC.

Spencerville had 326 yards of total offense in the game last season and a big part of success came from then junior quarterback Carder Orr. Now in his last season as a Bearcat Koenig has liked what he has see from his senior signal caller.

“Carder has just grown into form and has really been able to take over the huddle,” said Koenig of Orr. “He’s a smart kid and knows what everyone is doing on the field at all times and he makes the right adjustments at the line of scrimmage when we need it.”

Koenig has seen progress throughout the preseason as well. The Bearcats scrimmaged Shawnee on August 9th before wrapping up the preseason last Thursday when they scrimmaged Benjamin Logan and Mechanicsburg.

What I am most proud of is how we took a positive step from our first scrimmage to our second scrimmage,” said Koenig of the preseason. “It is always important to keep moving in the right direction and I thought we did that last week for our scrimmage and hopefully we can do that this week.”

It will be an experienced group of players for the Bearcats this season. Along with Orr, the Bearcats will feature Zach Looser at tailback and the weapons keep on coming as Grady Smith and Will Sensabaugh so it will be a deep pocket of weapons for Spencerville this season.

The Bearcats will have an experience upfront as Gavin Schwartz, Javier Franco, and Trevor Whitney will lead the trenches for Spencerville this season.

If the Bearcats want to be 1-0 for the second season in a row under Koenig, the Bearcats must win the battle upfront.

“This game is going to come down to who was more physical upfront,” concluded Koenig. “Controlling the line of scrimmage is always a key component as well as finding success early and building off of that as the game goes on will be key for us.

“They run a wing-t style of play that hits fast and our linebackers will have to read things quickly and fill fast to counter that.”

If you can’t make it or if you miss throughout the season tune in to Zsports 3 as the guys Nate Stidham and Shane Falke will have you covered every Friday night as the Beantown Barbers pregame show kicks off at 6:30pm before kickoff at 7pm.

As always Go Cats!