SPENCERVILLE-The Spencerville Bearcats head home for what will be their final two home games of the season beginning on Friday night when the Allen East Mustangs come to town for what will be homecoming night for the Bearcats.
“I think Homecoming is more excitement than distraction for our guys,” said Spencerville head coach Kyle Koenig. “It is a fun night for the guys, and I think our guys have done a good job this week focusing on the task at hand. I think it’ll be fun for the guys and hopefully that translates on the field for us.”
For Spencerville it was a tough 53-0 loss to Fort Loramie last Friday. However Koenig talked about what he saw from the Redskins last week on film.
“I thought our guys played extremely hard last week and with a lot of pride,” commented Koenig. “Obviously, the outcome was not what we wanted, but I was really proud of how our guys kept competing last week; it was really encouraging to see.”
The Allen East Mustangs some might say that they might be the surprise team in the NWC with Shane Wireman in his first year leading his Alma Mater.
“Allen East is a challenge to prep for,” said Koenig. “They do a lot of things in different formations to really make you think. They jump from the gun to under center and do it effectively. They just throw a lot of things at you and they do it pretty well. They have playmakers all around that can get you if you aren’t disciplined with your eyes and assignments. We’ve scrimmaged Coach Wireman in the past with his teams at Waynesfield and Shawnee, so it is not all unfamiliar with us, but it’ll be a challenge for our guys this week with communication and alignment with all the different things they will see.”
This will be a balanced offense that comes to town as the Mustangs average 330 yards per game with 158 yards coming on the ground and 172 through the air to go along with 27.9 points per game.
Keegan Jones has righted the ship for the Mustangs as the senior has completed 71 of 103 pass attempts for 1,180 yards to go along with 11 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. Jones also has 74 carries for 315 yards and 4 touchdowns.
Jones is part of the 1-2 punch for Allen East as running back Miles McDorman has 101 carries for 681 yards and 12 touchdowns.
Defensively the Mustangs come in middle of the pack in the NWC allowing 283 yards a game with 163 of those yards coming on the ground and 120 through the air and allowing 22.6 points per game.
Koenig gave his keys to victory against Allen East on Friday.
“Keys for us to is to control the line of scrimmage, controlling time of possession and finishing plays defensively,” concluded Koenig. “Be in the right spots and make the tackle when we are there.”
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: This will be the 24 meeting between the Bearcats and Mustangs since 2009 with the Mustangs winning 5 of the last 6 matchups. The last time the Mustangs visited Spencerville it was the Bearcats that picked up the 23-20 victory.
