By RYAN WALKER
MONROEVILLE —The Southern Wells Raiders fell to the Heritage Patriots on the road 68-20 Friday night.
Despite the most points in a game all season for head coach Mike Roeder’s team, they still lost by 48, and gave credit to the Patriots head coach Casey Kolkman.
“Hats off to Heritage,” Roeder said after the game. “Another great team, another buzz-saw that we ran into, but coach (Kolkman) does a great job with them, and I’m sure they’re going to have a good run here in the tournament.”
The Patriots began with the ball at their own 35-yard line. After putting up four straight first-down plays, Kobe Meyer punched in a 10-yard score, the first of his four touchdowns on the night.
It was all Heritage from that point on in the first half.
Meyer added a 17-yard touchdown dart to Ibrahim Williams, followed by a Braden Walters 60-yard pick-six off of senior Jenson Nusbaumer. Meyer found the end zone again for a 24-yard keeper, and Walters snagged his second score of the night on a 54-yard punt return.
By the end of the first quarter it was 34-0, and it wasn’t over at that point either.
Three more scores for the Allen County Athletic Conference’s second-place team in the standings rounded out the second quarter. All three were 20-plus yard carries from Isaac Nagy, Meyer, and Eli Tigulis.
Heritage, after a come-from-behind victory over Bluffton last week, was looking to move to 4-1 on the conference season. They had already beaten top-10 2A-ranked South Adams earlier in the season.
Southern Wells put up just 32 yards in the half, looking like a third-straight shutout for the Raider offense.
Not so fast.
With the running clock to start the period, the Raiders showed signs of life rather quickly. Case Boxell ran up the middle for a 19-yard carry which set up for Bryar Gearheart to bolt free on a 45-yard run to the house. Following the score, Gearheart, on the two-point conversion, ran it in from the left side himself, dodging would-be tacklers.
Heritage responded with a three-and-out, its first drive without a score all game, giving the ball back to Southern Wells at its own 25.
On the first play of the drive, Gearheart sprinted up the gut for 39 yards to give the Raiders another chance to score. Gearheart cleaned up the drive for another huge gain of 35 yards. A failed kick put the score at 55-14.
Heritage would get those points back with scores from Tigulis and Lucas Weber.
On the last drive of the game, the Raiders drove all the way down the field, using jet sweeps to set up for carries up the middle, and scoring on the last play of the game on a Roberts carry.
“Those are all companion plays,” Roeder said about the setup sweeps. “But the problem is in the first half, they were getting too much penetration, so we weren’t able to do those things. Second half, things clicked a little bit better.”
In that second half, Southern Wells put up 206 yards of total offense, all on the ground. The three touchdowns were the most they had scored all season, and Roeder was happy for his players.
“We’re going to accentuate the positives, and there were more positives than negatives in the second half, so we’re just trying to give these kids the feeling of success,” he said. “Anytime we can do that, it’s a positive.”
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HERITAGE 68,
SOUTHERN WELLS 20
At Heritage
Southern Wells 0 0 14 6 – 20
Heritage 34 21 0 13 – 68
First Quarter
H—Kobe Meyer 10-yard run (Aung kick), 9:47
H—Kobe Meyer 17-yard pass to Ibrahim Williams (Aung kick), 5:42
H—Braden Walters 60-yard interception return (kick no good), 4:41
H—Kobe Meyer 24-yard run (Aung kick), 1:30
H—Braden Walters 54-yard punt return (Aung kick), 0:14
Second Quarter
H—Isaac Nagy 20-yard run (Aung kick), 7:30
H—Kobe Meyer 26-yard run (Aung kick), 5:29
H—Eli Tigulis 21-yard run (1:25), 1:25
Third Quarter
SW—Bryar Gearheart 45-yard run (Gearheart 2-pt run good), 8:53
SW—Bryar Gearheart 35-yard run (kick no good), 3:00
Fourth Quarter
H—Eli Tigulis 25-yard run (Aung kick), 10:26
H—Lucas Weber 5-yard run ((Aung kick), 6:14
SW—Gage Roberts 5-yard run (no kick, end of game), 0:17
Team Statistics
SW HER
First Downs 9 9
Rushes-Yards 36-242 32-291
Passing Yards 10 78
Passing (C-A-I) 1-9-2 1-13-0
Penalties-Yards 1-17 5-55
Fumbles-Lost 1-1 2-0
Punts-Average 3-26 1-36
Time of Possession 23:42 21:55
Individual Statistics
Rushing: Southern Wells, Bryar Gearheart 10-117, Gage Roberts 10-85, Case Boxell 14-35, Owen King 1-(minus 2), Jenson Nusbaumer 1-(minus5). Heritage, Kobe Meyer 8-109, Isaac Nagy 7-54, Eli Tigulis 5-49, Nolan Hoskins 5-39, Lucas Weber 4-17, Mar Mat Ra Fee 3-16
Passing: Southern Wells, Jenson Nusbaumer 1-9-2 10. Heritage-Kobe Meyer 8-9-0 71, Eli Tigulis 3-4-0 7.
Receiving: Southern Wells, Bryar Gearheart 1-10. Heritage, Ibrahim Williams 4-31, Tanner Whitman 3-26, D’vontaye Washington 1-14, Landon Robbins 2-6, Andrew Mirelez 1-1.
