Week 9 Preview: Blanchester at Fayetteville-Perry

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With Bethel-Tate all but locking up the SBAAC National Division championship with last week’s 41-14 win, Blanchester must now turn its attention to other goals.

First is beating Fayetteville-Perry this week and then East Clinton in the regular season finale.

Accomplishing those two individual goals may put the Wildcats in a position to reach another goal, the playoffs.

Fayetteville-Perry will host Blanchester 7 p.m. Friday night.

The Rockets, 5-3 on the year, are currently 8th in the Division VII Region 28 rankings. A win for the Rockets over the Division V Wildcats would score big points and put them in a spot to possibly host a playoff game.

The Wildcats (3-4), on the other hand, are on the outside looking in at the post-season. BHS is 17th and only 16 teams advance.

BHS head coach Jon Mulvihill said there’s no holding back at this point in the season.

“This might be the most athletic football team that Fayetteville has ever had,” Mulvihill said. “They have four really good wide receivers and a very good QB (See SBAAC story on previous page). They’re going to score points. We have to be able to take their punches and answer right back. This game will come down to which team can handle the pressure. We are going to be aggressive on offense, defense, and special teams.”

The Wildcats are 100 percent healthy in terms of available bodies. “Couple guys dealing with nagging injuries but nothing they can’t play through,” he said.

Bryce Sipple left last week’s loss to Bethel-Tate but is expected to be available.

Mulvihill said Bethel-Tate may well be the best team his squad has faced this season – North Union being right there – but the Wildcats put themselves in bad situations on multiple occasions.

“After watching film, we put ourselves in some really tough situations,” he said. “We made some really bad adjustments, that we shouldn’t have made, that cost us at least twice. We missed a lot of tackles and blew assignments. To put in nicely, we were extremely sloppy and undisciplined on defense. Part of that was fatigue, part of it was because Bethel-Tate was beating us up physically.”

Michael Mulvihill (14) and his Wildcat teammates will travel to Fayetteville Friday night to face the Rockets.
https://www.wnewsj.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2021/10/web1_FB7_blMulvihill1001ag-3.jpgMichael Mulvihill (14) and his Wildcat teammates will travel to Fayetteville Friday night to face the Rockets. April Garrett | News Journal

By Mark Huber

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