First quarter ends hope for Fort victory (10/11/03)

FORT RECOVERY — With a match-up against Division IV No. 1 Coldwater looming next week, the Fort Recovery football team was hoping to earn its first Midwest Athletic Conference win Friday. The New Bremen Cardinals erased that idea from everyone’s mind in the first quarter.

The visiting Cardinals scored four times in the first quarter — on drives of three, two, two and four plays — and rolled over the Indians for a 52-22 victory.

The Indians will visit the top-ranked Cavaliers Friday at 7:30 p.m.

New Bremen (3-5, 2-4 MAC) scored on the opening drive of the game after a pair of runs by fullback Dan Sidebottom garnered six yards. On third-and-four the Cardinals called Troy Lammers’ number and he delivered in a big way, busting through the middle of the Tribe defense for a 59-yard touchdown run.

Curt Eilerman tacked on the extra point for the 7-0 lead less than two minutes into the contest.

Fort Recovery’s first drive was a three-and-out, setting up the Cardinals on their own 33-yard line. This time Lammers went for negative-five yards on the first play of the drive, so New Bremen simply tried someone else.

That someone was Jeff Thobe, who ran behind his right tackle before cutting back to the middle of the field and going 72 yards. The score and another Eilerman kick upped the lead to 14-0 at the 8:10 mark of the first quarter.

Once more Fort Recovery went three-and-out, and a 20-yard punt return by New Bremen put the ball in Indian territory.

With the short field, the Cardinals saw no need to fool around. Mark Fleagle rushed four eight yards on the opening play of the drive, and quarterback Alex Leugers scored on the next.

He dropped back to pass, escaped Tyler Wuebker’s rush and scampered 38 yards down the right sideline for the 21-0 advantage.

Another Tribe three-and-out led to New Bremen’s most time-consuming drive of the quarter, a four-play jaunt taking 2:08 off the clock.

The Cardinals ran on the first three plays of the drive setting up a third-and-four from the Tribe 14-yard line. As the Indians tried to make a stand Leugers tossed his first pass of the game, a 14-yard completion to Eilerman for yet another touchdown.

Already trailing 28-0, Fort Recovery did a better job defensively in the second quarter. The Indians held New Bremen to only a 24-yard field goal by Eilerman in the second period for a 31-6 halftime deficit.

The lone first-half score for the Tribe came on a three-yard run by Stan Roessner.

Overall, it was a compete first-half domination by the Cardinals. They outgained Fort Recovery 312-80 before the intermission, on the way to a 467-207 advantage in net yardage.

The Tribe did not pick up a first down until Roessner broke through for a 16-yard run on a draw play with 44 seconds to go in the first period.

New Bremen rushed 18 times for 228 yards in the first half, an average of more than 12 yards per carry, and finished with 373 rushing yards on the evening. Thobe had four of those carries for 94 first-half yards, and Lammers added another four for 60 yards.

Leugers was 5-of-9 through the air of 86 yards to go along with his touchdown run. He finished the game with 94 yards passing.

The Cardinals added touchdowns by Sidebottom and Thobe in the third quarter, and one from Brian Garman in the fourth for a 52-6 lead.

Finally the Indians (1-7, 0-6 MAC) got some offense in the fourth period with a 9-yard touchdown run from Roessner and a 35-yard scoring run by Mark Willmann. Willmann found Tyler Wuebker for one two-point conversion, and Tony Diller ran in the other for the 52-22 final margin.

Roessner rushed the ball 11 times for 38 yards to lead Fort Recovery. Willman added six carries for 36 yards, and Tony Diller carried five times for 28 yards.

The Tribe played almost the entire game without leading rusher Greg Faller. He left the contest after the opening series with what appeared to be a stinger.

Willman finished 10-of-23 passing for 102 yards. Five of his passes went to Wuebker for a total of 41 yards, and Dusty Guggenbiller and Dominick Post each added a pair of receptions.[[In-content Ad]]