Spencerville to be more physical against Riverside

SPENCERVILLE-The 2026 Spencerville Football season continues on Friday night when the Bearcats visit the Riverside Pirates. The Pirates come in fresh off a 47-21 over Springfield Northeastern last week.

“Protecting the football,” said Riverside head coach Bryce Hodge. “Ansonia is a tough, physical football team that likes to wear teams down, and take the clock with them. We have played them long enough, we understand their goals pretty well. We turned the ball over on downs, and with a fumble, and two of those were in the deep red zone, so we missed out on two scoring opportunities. We emphasized our fundamentals, execution, and assignments because we also had too many mental mistakes (blown assignments) week one. Unfortunately we started week 2 with a fumble on the 4th play of the game after three big runs, but we protected the ball after that and scored 7 touchdowns. So the execution improved in week 2, and we showed a glimpse into our potential, because we still made too many unforced errors and mental mistakes. A lot to clean up this week, like every week.”

For the Bearcats it’s been a work in progress for the first two weeks of the season as they have tallied just 172 total yards and being outscored 115-0 in two weeks.

Head coach Kyle Koenig explains what needs to change for the Bearcats starting on Friday.

“We are focusing on making sure each level for us whether it be offensively or defensively is doing their job,” said Koenig. “It starts up front and it is a domino effect after that.  Everyone has to do what they are responsible to do otherwise it prevents others for doing their responsibilities.”

“So, we focus on being accountable for what we are doing,” added Koenig. “We focus on being more resilient and having more positive body language throughout a game and making sure one play does not define us for the rest of the night.  We come together as a team.  Celebrate the good with each other and make sure we pick each other up when mistakes happen.  Lastly, we focus on being competitive no matter the circumstance.  The score of the game should not define how competitive we are on the field.  Every play is a competition, and we need to have the effort each play to deserve to win it.”

It will be a ground and pound football game on Friday night as both teams want to take it to the ground. Riverside has averaged 317 rushing yards per game in the first two weeks of the season.

“Riverside is another team that is very similar to us schematically,” commented Koenig. “They have three really good running backs.  They are all on top of their conference in rushing yards between the first two weeks.  We need to match the physicality their offensive line brings to the table.  Linebackers need to read their keys, and we need to swarm the football.”

The Riverside rushing attack is all back from last with Quarterback Brady Osborne back leading the Pirates. Through two games Osborne has rushed for 23 yards on 6 carries and has thrown for just 125 yards on 7 of 12 pass attempts and a touchdown.

The main rusher for the Pirates has been Gunnar Carpenter who has 30 carries for 148 yards and 2 touchdowns.

“We are in a much better spot this year compared to this time last year,” said Hodge. “Last year was year one in a new offensive and defensive scheme, so we knew there’d be growing pains last season. We’ve had a solid preseason as far as execution, offensive/defensive install, and the team has been working hard since December 1st (first lift last off-season).”

With the absence of Kolton Grigsby throughout the first two weeks of the season it has been sophomore Maxwell Jurek who has been getting the bulk of the carries. Jurek has 33 carries for 72 yards on the young season.

“Maxwell does a great job,” said Koenig of Jurek. “It stinks that he’s been dealing with an ankle injury this first part of the season because he has put in so much work in the offseason to get where he is today.  He sees things pretty well in the backfield, and he is an aggressive kid all around.  I am really looking forward to seeing him continue to just get better and better as this year goes on.”

The Bearcats went back to school yesterday and Koenig sees it as a positive for the group.

“Coming back to school is huge for us,” commented Koenig. “I think our kids really thrive when they have a set routine that they can follow every day.  It is also more exciting on Fridays walking the halls, anticipation for the game builds throughout.  It just makes the high school football experience more enjoyable I think and I think it will be a positive for our guys.”

Hodge talked about what they will see from Spencerville come Friday.

“This is our 4th season playing Spencerville,” said Hodge. “They are always gritty, tough, and want to turn the game into a grind with a chance to win at the end. We both want to run the football, protect the football, and play physical on both sides of the ball. The challenge will be what it has been in these matchups. We need to limit mistakes and turnovers, try to get ahead early and put SV behind the chains, and hopefully score every time we have the football.”

Both coaches kept it simple for the keys to victory on Friday night.

“Do our jobs,” concluded Koenig. “Every position has a specific job to do, and we need to do it to the best of our abilities.  We need to control the time of possession.  Keep their big play running backs off the field as much as we can and secure long scoring drives.  Lastly, we need to up our physicality upfront.  We need to be the aggressors on Friday Night and make them make adjustments to what we are doing.  Not the other way around.”

“We try to simplify our goals come game day,” concluded Hodge. “We want to be the best blocking and tackling team on the field, and win the turnover battle. When we do those things, and play physical football, the big goal of winning the game tends to take care of itself. We need to clean up our mental mistakes, blown assignments, and missed tackles. Because Anna just lost a game to Fort Loramie in week 2 that I’m sure nobody thought would happen. But in HS football, anyone can be beat on any given night.”

If you can’t make it to the game tune in to ZSPORTS 3 as Brock Blythe will have all the action with the Beantown Barbers pregame show at 6:30pm followed by kickoff at 7pm.

Series notes:This will be the second time in the series that Spencerville will travel to Degraff. The last visit resulted in a 24-21 Bearcat victory. Riverside currently leads the series 2-1.