SPENCERVILLE-It has been an emotional week for Spencerville local schools and its community as it started with an early morning on Labor Day. Beloved teammate and classmate senior Owen Conley life was lost in an unexpected, fatal accident at 4am on Monday.
The Bearcats are still going to keep on keeping on when it comes to taking on Riverside on Friday night.
Spencerville head coach talked about the loss of Conley and what he meant to Spencerville and the entire community.
“This week has been hard on the guys, stated head coach Kyle Koenig. “Owen was such a fun person to be around. In the classroom and out of the classroom Owen was always able to put a smile on people’s faces. This week has been tough, Owen meant a lot to these guys, and I have been very proud how they have come together this week and just supported each other through all of it.”
Spencerville had a tight game last Friday night at Memorial Field as a late touchdown from Grady Smith propelled the Bearcats to a hard-fought 25-21 victory over Wayne Trace.
“I thought our guys did a great job last week of coming together and persevering through a tough game,” said Koenig. “We had so many ups and downs throughout the game, and our guys were able to find a way to pull it out.”
It was the 1-2 punch of Kolton Grigsby and Zach Looser and both featured in different halfs but both reached over 100 yards in last week’s win.
“I don’t think it was ever the plan, it just happened,” commented Koenig on his two running backs. “Kolten was running really well in the first half, ended up getting beat up a little and we went to Zach and Zach did a great job of carrying the load late in the game.”
As for their opponent on Friday night, Riverside has started the year 0-2. They lost 36-6 in week 1 to Ansonia before falling last week to Springfield Northeastern 36-8. However head coach Bryce Hodge likes the progress from his team so far.
“We are a young team that has a lot of new varsity players stepping up this year,” said Hodge. “Our kids are learning a lot, improving each week, but we need to clean up our execution. We have lost the turnover battle each week, and have struggled to put the ball in the end zone, so we have a lot to clean up going into week 3.”
Riverside like Spencerville will look to keep the ball on the ground by committee. Gunnar Carpenter has the most touches with 23 carries for 103 yards for a touchdown while Tony Robinson has 21 carries for 62 yards. Dylan Trimble is their home run threat as he has 14 carries for a team high 127 yards.
What was probably the interesting storyline from Spencerville win against Wayne Trace was their defense and their ability to stop the run. Koenig talked about his defense and what has impressed him with it.
Koenig talked about his team building on days with practice with such a young team.
“We always talk about if you want to play great on Friday you need to prepare great throughout the week,” said Koenig. “Our guys did that last week, and I think the improvement from Week 1 to Week 2 showed. “
Both coaches expressed what they need to do to get the victory on Friday.
“So for this week, we are still focused on improving, getting better on both sides of the ball, cleaning up our fundamentals,” concluded Hodge. “We had 54 missed tackles last week, and five red zone trips that resulted in 0 points, so we need to clean that stuff up.”
“The keys for us will be to control the time of possession, win first down and try to make them more predictable on offense, and force some turnovers.” Concluded Koenig. “Austin and Grady both had some huge interceptions for us last week. If we can do those three things I think it will put us in a good position at the end of the game.”
If you can’t make to the game on Friday listen to Zsports 3 as Caleb Giesken and myself will have all the action starting with the Miami Erie propane pregame show at 6:30pm followed by kickoff at 7pm.
On behalf of Zsports 3 and myself our deepest regards and sympathies goes to the family of Owen Conley.
B-rockblythe.org 