Friday night football
Area teams open season
BREMEN – Facing each other for the first time in almost five years, old Northern State Conference and U.S. 6 rivals Bremen and Laville met Friday night to start the 2019 high school football campaign.
Led by a ball-hawking defense and a big night from Kolby Watts, it was the Lancers coming out on top, winning the season-opener for both squads, 27-7, at Bunge Field.
Watts scored on an 80-yard kickoff return, had two touchdown runs and also an interception. The senior running back finished with 82 yards on 13 carries, 72 coming after halftime.
“Kolby had a great offseason,” said Laville head coach Will Hostrawser. “He is a great ballplayer, gives everything he’s got and the first thing he’ll tell you is the guys in front of him did a great job. He has not played defense until this year and I think that has brought his offense up. That is a credit to his hard work.”
The Lancers’ defense had three interceptions, forced two fumbles, and allowed just 2.8 yards per carry to the Lion runners (89 yards on 31 carries).
“You turn the ball over and that’s what happens,” said Bremen head coach Jordan Leeper, whose squad has just a couple of holdovers from last year’s semi-state team. “We’re young and inexperienced and guys are trying to figure out how to play the game. That’s not an excuse, but Laville put themselves in a good position to make those plays. Our offense did not help our defense. I thought our defense did fantastic, (Laville) just wore us down because we were on defense the whole time.”
Bremen took the early lead, scoring on a Bryce Wogomon one-yard plunge one play after Lane Moser blocked a punt late in the first quarter. Lenni Diaz’s point after kick made it 7-0.
It didn’t take long for Laville to tie it up though, as Watts took the ensuing kickoff 80 yards to paydirt. The first of three Leyton Czarnecki PATS knotted the score at 7-all.
Three plays later, Czarnecki snatched LV’S first interception and on the very next play Ayden Doyle found Andrew Dill in the right corner of the end zone from 10 yards out.
Despite just one first down compared to six by the Lions and only 16 plays compared to Bremen’s 33, LV led 13-7 at the intermission. After a scoreless third period, the Lancers started to wear down the Lion defense. Sandwiched around an Evan Bettcher interception, LV put together scoring drives of 10 and 11 plays, respectively, each ending with Watts in the end zone.
Defense has been our backbone,” continued Hostrawser. “On offense we are trying to find an identity and I think we made progress there. We did a nice job with our running game in the second half. We started two freshmen on the offensive line and getting them up to speed against a team like Bremen is a tough challenge.”
Brady Ginter had 49 yards rushing to lead Bremen and Wogomon added 41. Sam Huffman made a nice catch in traffic for a 22-yard reception and Hunter Bennitt made an acrobatic catch for a 26-yard gain. Zack Miller had an interception for the Lions. The third interception for Laville was by Czarnecki in the second quarter.