SPENCERVILLE- The Spencerville Bearcats have completed their non conference schedule and now the Bearcats come home to begin NWC schedule against the surprising winless Knights.
“Last week I thought that our guys did a much better job of competing and staying resilient throughout the game, which was a focus for us all week,” said Spencerville head coach Kyle Koenig. “I thought defensively in the first half we were pretty solid. Made some big stops throughout and thought we played with the energy that we needed. There are still little things defensively to work on obviously. Our tackling in the second half was not very good. We had guys in the right spots to make plays but did not wrap and drive our feet like we needed to in order to make tackles.
“Offensively, we just are not executing things like we need to,” added Koenig. “We need to do a better job sustaining blocks all around and making sure that our steps and our course for both linemen and running backs are correct. A bright spot offensively was I thought it was Grant Layman’s best game at Quarterback so far. He used his legs on roll outs to give us some nice plays. Had one costly interception in the first half but did not let it affect him. Hopefully, he continues to trend in the right direction.”
The Bearcats showed signs of improvement against Riverside last week by tallying up 171 yards of offense and getting numerous stops in the red zone.
As for the Knights the turnover bug has haunted them early in the season as they have turned it over a league high 7 times in the first three weeks.
Crestview’s new signal caller Cooper Miller has completed 35 of 91 passes attempts for 534 yards with 2 touchdowns and 4 interceptions.
The running back room has been by committee since the graduation of Braxton Leeth with Evan Brincefield leading the way with 26 carries on 84 yards and a touchdown.
“The biggest lessons we have learned so far is that we have to take advantage of opportunities we are given,” said Crestview head coach Cole Harting to VW independent. “We have to capitalize on field position and turnovers. We also have to execute our assignments, we cannot afford mental mistakes.”
“We are now entering the second part of our season,” Harting said to VW independent. “We aren’t where we thought we would be at this point, but starting conference play allows us to sort of reset and refocus our goals.”
Something will have to give come Friday night at Memorial Field as the Knights and Bearcats are ranked in the bottom two in scoring and in scoring defense in the NWC.
Last Friday marked the return of junior running back Kolton Grigsby. Grigsby rushed for 10 yards on 6 carries in the first half against Riverside last week.
“Kolten just provides a spark on both sides of the ball,” commented Koenig. “He brings our team speed up and when you have someone like that on the field, it is easy to get excited and a little more confident. I thought for his first real live action of the year he did a pretty good job of providing that extra burst that we need.”
The Knights and Bearcats have had their fair share of battles over the years including last year’s Crestview victory over Spencerville 33-27.
Both coaches talked about the keys to victory on Friday night.
“With us both being 0-3, we are both going to fight and give everything we have to get in the win column,” Harting said to VW independent. “Their offense has struggled, but the Wing-T offense is difficult to prepare for. Statistically, we have not done a great job of stopping the run (allowing 262 yards rushing per game). We need to force them into third and long and get them off the field.”
“We need to control the clock and the line of scrimmage,” concluded Koenig. “We need to finish plays defensively with gang tackles. Everyone to the football. Lastly, our special teams need to be clean this week. We have to many self-inflicted wounds from special teams these first three weeks and we need to get those fixed.”
If you can’t make it to the game tune in to Zsports 3 as Shane Falke and Brock Blythe will have all the action with the Beantown Barbers pregame show at 6:30pm followed by kickoff at 7pm.
Series notes: When the Knights and Bearcats meet up on Friday night it will be the 25th meeting between the two schools. The Knights have won each of the last four meetings and the current series is tied 12-12.
