SPENCERVILLE-It will be a beautiful night for football and what a better way for it to happen than at Memorial Field where the lights shine bright on the turf and the crowd will roar with excitement.
The scrappy Bearcats will kickoff a two game home stand as they will host the Wayne Trace Raiders on Friday before welcoming Riverside next Friday night.
Both Spencerville and Wayne Trace will look to do a few things come Friday after both teams lost a combined 96-0 to MAC foes New Bremen and Anna.
One thing that both teams will look to reach pay Dirr as neither team scored last week.
Spencerville head coach Kyle Koenig talked about what he saw on film against Anna.
“I think the biggest thing that happened Friday is that our inexperienced showed,” said Koenig. “Unfortunately for us, we did not have a second scrimmage due to some sickness going on around the team so we did not have that extra prep that we would have liked going into last week. I thought our kids played hard, but the youth that we have and the speed that Anna gave us caused some problems.”
Wayne Trace also lost 41-0 to New Bremen but there was still things to take away said head coach Matt Holden.
“Well, we certainly faced a great opponent in New Bremen,” said Holden. “I think that those who actually watched the game would say that we looked competitive in areas during the game. Right off the start of the game we forced them to punt, which is as good of a defensive start as you can ask for. We then were able to move the ball ok on them on our first few offensive plays, but two bad snaps in a row forced us to punt, ruining our momentum in the game. The story after that for the rest of the game was small details making a big difference in all phases of the game. We had 6 turnovers, which won’t help you win ANY games, let alone against a high quality team like New Bremen. On special teams, we struggled catching punts and kickoffs which, again, doesn’t help at all. I thought our offensive line did a really good job against a great defensive line on most plays. Our backs on some plays did a great job of being patient and finding holes and on other plays, we missed some open gaps that our line created. Defensively, we struggled with tackling in space and allowed a couple of pass completions in critical situations. I thought we did a pretty good job of fitting the run on most plays, but the times where we had a mental lapse they made us pay, which you can expect from good teams.”
After a tough loss to Anna, Koenig kept it simple about the approach to this week.
“This week for us is all about getting back to the basics and keeping things simple for ourselves,”commented Koenig. “Like I said we have some young guys starting in big spots for us so, it is important for our guys to know what they are doing and be able to do it fast.”
The Bearcats will look to move the ball on Friday after totaling just 81 total yards last week against the Rockets.
The two teams have scrimmaged each other over the last handful of seasons before finally getting to play each other last season in Haviland and it was a dandy.
The Bearcats came away with a hard fought 28-27 over the Raiders last season. The highlight came late in the game on a hard hit from graduated senior Carder Orr that gave the ball back to the Bearcats to get them the victory.
Both teams understand just how similar they are.
“We’re both teams that want to get a ground game established,” said Holden. “They play hard-nosed football and that’s the brand of football that we’re trying to play as well. Like us, they have some athletic kids in key positions and, like us, their roster is a bit thinner than it normally is. There’s not a whole lot of depth to go around on either team. Defensively I think they have a similar philosophy to ours in that they want to fly to the football. They play with aggression, especially at the linebacker level. That’s pretty much a mirror image of our team. Our linebackers do a lot of the heavy lifting in our defense, as well.”
“Both teams are going to try and run the ball,” added Koenig” “We have a similar style of running things, the difference being us under center and them being in the gun. We had scrimmaged Wayne Trace before we added them to the schedule, and it has always been a competitive match up and I have no doubt it will be the same.”
Spencerville returned back to school on Wednesday and Koenig talked about getting back to a routine.
“I actually think getting back to school and getting back into a routine is great for us,” said Koenig. “It gets the guys up and moving early and they are moving around throughout the day. It can make the day long for them, but our guys do a great job of bringing energy to practice, so I’m glad we are back in a routine.”
Both coaches kept it simple for the keys to victory on Friday.
“Offensively: We need to take care of the football, first and foremost” concluded Holden. “We need to do a better job of reading our blocks when we have the ball in our hands. We need to try to get the ball to some of our athletes more.
Defensively: We need to tackle better. We need to continue to bring a high level of physicality to this unit. We need to read our keys and react appropriately.
Special Teams: We need to secure the football and catch it in the air.”
“Keys for us are going to be control the clock,” concluded Koenig. “Going on a long Bearcat style drive is what really gets us going offensively and if we can do that and do it consistently, we will be right where we want to be. We need to really focus on our keys on defense. They do a lot of counters and misdirection so it will be key for us to be disciplined on the defensive end. Finally, we need to tackle better this week. We had a couple chances to get some stops last week and missed tackles or over ran tackles. Eliminating those will be big for our defense.”
If you can’t make it to the game tune in to Zsports 3 as Nate Stidham and Shane Falke will have all the action with the Beatown Barbers pregame show at 6:30 pm followed by kickoff at 7pm.
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