By RYAN WALKER
The Bluffton Tigers took down the Southern Wells Raiders 50-0 on the road during its homecoming Friday night.
Like last week against Jay County, Bluffton started off with a surprisingly slow start. The Raiders began their first drive of the game with something they don’t normally do: Throw the ball.
Jenson Nusbaumer, who has only 128 passing yards on 31 attempts this season, dropped back and threw a 50-50 ball to Bryar Gearheart. Gearheart stopped, turned around and reeled the ball to his chest, and held on for a 33-yard pickup. The Raiders, on the next three plays, ran the ball for 17 yards before dropping back to pass again, just falling short of completion.
At Bluffton’s 32 yard-line, Nusbaumer dropped back to throw for a third time but tossed an easy interception to the Tigers’ Andrew Hunt.
Despite the turnover, Nusbaumer threw for 120 yards, 18 yards short of his season total. He threw 16 times, just over half of his season total as well.
“I mean, first off, I do want to give coach (Mike) Roeder credit,” Brent Kunkel said. “They got the ball to start, they came out, hit a big play, and put a nice first drive together on the first series. He had his kids ready to go for this game.”
Kunkel admitted that his team didn’t have their focus from the start with perhaps the street fair going on downtown. They need to improve that going forward, he said.
The focus shifted quickly after the turnover, as Kunkel’s Tigers marched down the field with three straight first downs, finishing the touchdown drive with quarterback Braxton Betancourt running in an 11-yard keeper.
On the Raiders’ next series, they took a three-and-out punt back near their own goal line. Rather than punting the ball, the long-snapper flung it to the back of the end zone for a safety.
From that point forward, the Tigers scored on every possession until the second half.
On their second drive, Betancourt connected with AJ Streveler for 52-yards. Khamel Moore, to end the first quarter, punched one in from four yards.
The next three scores started with an Andrew Hunt 59-yard punt return to the house and two rushing touchdowns from Anthony Cruz from one and four yards out.
The Tigers were scoring from everywhere, as they have all season. Mix together a balanced offense with a dual-threat quarterback with Betancourt, and the offense can attack in multiple ways.
“When Braxton is reading it, and he can run it, and we can screen on the RPO (run, pass, and option) game, it makes us dynamic the more that Braxton relies on his legs,” Kunkel said.
He mentioned his two running backs Cruz and Moore, along with wide-outs AJ Streveler, Brody Lewis, and Tucker Jenkins, as weapons that make the offense dangerous.
With the second half ready to go with a running clock, both teams went back and forth with the ball and no scoring. It wasn’t until the 7:43 mark in the final quarter before the next points went up.
Freshman Declan Greiser threw a deep pass to freshman Marshall Gerber for 48-yards.
Bluffton improves their regular season record to 4-2 (3-1 ACAC), bumping up their win total from a year ago in conference play. With Heritage on the clock next week, Kunkel says it’s one game at a time.
“We’ve got to focus on ourselves,” he said. “It’s a big one next week. Heritage was a game last year that was our best game of the year. We’re playing for second place in the league if we can knock off Heritage next week.”
As for Southern Wells, they move to 0-6 on the year (0-3 ACAC). Roeder declined comment after the game.
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BLUFFTON 50, SOUTHERN WELLS 0
At SOUTHERN WELLS
Score By Quarters
Bluffton 22 21 0 7 – 50
Southern Wells 0 0 0 0 – 0
Scoring Summary
First Quarter
B—Braxton Betancourt 11-yard run (kick no good) 7:24
B—Safety 5:44
B—Braxton Betancourt 52-yard pass to AJ Streveler (Lewis kick) 5:20
B—Khamel Moore 4-yard run (Lewis kick) 0:32
Second Quarter
B—Andrew Hunt 59-yard punt return (Lewis kick) 10:21
B—Anthony Cruz 1-yard run (Lewis kick) 8:06
B—Anthony Cruz 4-yard run (Lewis kick) 1:58
Third Quarter
No scoring.
Fourth Quarter
B—Declan Grieser 48-yard pass to Marshall Gerber (Serdiuk kick) 7:43
Team Statistics
BLUFF SW
First Downs 14 6
Rushes-Yards 28-225 28-5
Yards Passing 133 120
Passing (Comp-Att-Int) 9-10-0 8-17-1
Penalties-Yards 1-15 3-30
Fumbles-Lost 1- 1 3-2
Punts-Average 2-3 5-23
Time of Possession 21:56 26:04
Individual Statistics
Rushing: Bluffton, Anthony Cruz 9-90, Khamel Moore 7-57, Braxton Betancourt 2-34, Andrew Hunt 1-21, Kaden Simpson 3-13, Griffin Morgan 2-13, Fletcher Wenger 1-3. Southern Wells, Case Boxell 15-27, Bryar Gearheart 8- (minus 1), Kaiden Schmidt 1-(minis 4), Jarrett Martin 1-(minus 4), Jenson Nusbaumer 3- (minus 13).
Passing: Bluffton, Braxton Betancourt 8-8-0 85, Declan Greiser 1-2-0 48. Southern Wells, Jenson Nusbaumer 8-16-1 120, Levi Woodward 0-1-0 0
Receiving: Bluffton, AJ Streveler 2-53, Marshall Gerber 1-48. Southern Wells, Bryar Gearheart 6-92, Trey Slusher 1-15, Levi Woodward 1-13.
