After a 1-4 start, the Blanchester Wildcats have reeled off two impressive wins – 69-14 over Williamsburg and 42-0 over Clermont Northeastern.
“Our guys played with great intensity and with a relentless pursuit, that was good to see,” BHS head coach Brandon Sammons said of the win over the Rockets. “Offensively, we got behind the chains a couple times and were able to pull a few out, so that was good, and (freshman quarterback Brayden) Sipple was able to connect a couple nice deep balls with (Derick) Bowman and (Jacksson) Waialae. He has grown a lot from the beginning of the year. Our line is executing well and (James) Peters is running the ball hard, so that is fun to watch.”
This week, Blanchester (3-5, 2-1) hosts Fayetteville-Perry (5-3, 1-2). Back in Week 6, Fayetteville lost to Clermont Northeastern 42-7. So the score comparison logic would say Blanchester should have no trouble with the Brown County Rockets.
But CNE was missing several regular players against Blanchester, so it wasn’t quite the same team that defeated Fayetteville a few weeks earlier.
“CNE fielded the team they fielded,” Sammons said. “They had a lot of guys still playing that were their varsity guys. We’re not discounting anything. We got the result we expected regardless of who was on the field. We knew coming in we were the better football team because of the challenges we faced in the first five games. We executed and had a few bounces go our way in the game, but at the end of the night our defense was lights out giving up less than 30 yards.”
Sammons will make certain his Wildcats don’t overlook FHS.
“We don’t take any team lightly going in to any week,” he said. “We prepare the same each week and make sure we have a good game plan for the guys and the guys have been ratcheting up the intensity in practice as they know the end is coming for the seniors and the young guys are finding opportunities to show what they can do for the future, so practice has some good intensity lately and that is showing on Friday nights.”
