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Spring Grove slugs out shutout win over New Oxford


The weather reflected the mood in New Oxford after the Friday night matchup between the Colonials and the Spring Grove Rockets.

In the end, the visiting Rockets slugged out an an 18-0 shutout victory in YAIAA play.

The weather did no favors for either offense, as both teams struggled mightily to generate a consistent passing attack. The two teams combined to complete just 12 of 42 pass attempts. With such sloppy conditions and wet footballs, both teams knew the rushing attack would be key to a victory.

“With the conditions that it was, we couldn’t be fancy at all,” Spring Grove head coach Kyle Sprenkle said. “We just had to go downhill.”

The Rockets were led by senior running back Ryan Daugherty, who paced the offense with 23 carries for 159 yards and two touchdowns.

The Colonials struggled to generate much of any offense against a very stout Rockets defense, and when they did start to put together a drive, it wound up floundering.

“Every time we were marching the ball forward, we started to take steps back,” said Colonials head coach Greg Bowman. “You can’t win ballgames that way.”

All in all, the Colonials were able to muster just 178 total yards of offense, and the lack of yardage was punctuated by an opportunistic Rockets defense that generated three momentum-crushing interceptions.

Colonials quarterback Tanner Miller was constantly harassed in the pocket and wound up being sacked twice, while being pressured regularly.

“We preach to be an aggressive defense all the time, and our kids really rose to the occasion,” Sprenkle said. “I give a lot of credit to our ‘D,’ they kept us in the game and helped us maintain control.”

New Oxford, now 0-5 on the season, will try and clean up the errors moving forward.

“Credit to Spring Grove for executing better than we did tonight,” Bowman said. “We gotta clean things up, we gotta execute better, and it starts at practice.”

The Colonials will look to rebound next Friday when they play host to Central York. The Rockets, now 3-2, take to the road once again as they face William Penn.

Spring Grove 18, New Oxford 0
Spring Grove_ 0_ 6_ 6_ 6_ — _ 18
New Oxford_ 0_ 0_ 0_ 0_ — _ 0
Second Quarter
SG
— Ryan Daugherty 56-rush (kick failed), 9:45.
Third Quarter
SG
— Daugherty 2-rush (2-point failed), 6:25.
Fourth Quarter
SG
— Brady Stein 40-pass from Jake Messersmith (kick failed), 7:55.
Team Statistics
_ SG_ NO
First downs _ 8_ 11
Rushes-yards _ 36-195_ 42-76
Passing _ 5-18-1_ 7-24-3
Passing yards _ 132_ 102
Total yards _ 327_ 178
Punts _ 3-32.3_ 4-30.0
Fumbles-lost _ 2-1_ 0-0
Penalties-yards _ 3-30_ 5-35
Individual Statistics
Rushing
— SG-R. Daugherty 23-159, J. Messersmith 7-26, Braden Brandt 3-7, Anthony Beddia 1-5, Trent Baker 1-0, Eric Glass 1- (-2). NO- Isaac Siegman 16-62, Brandon Scott 6-10, Brennan Romanoff 11-2, Tanner Miller 9-2.
Passing — SG- J. Messersmith 5-18-132-1 (INT). NO- T. Miller 7-24-102-3 (INTs).
Receiving — SG- B. Stein 3-85, A. Beddia 1-24, Blake King 1-23. NO- Darrick Rudisill 4-73, Andy Reyez 2-21, Luke Lardarello 1-8.