Book of Mike

SPENCERVILLE - Held scoreless through their first two games of the season the Bluffton Pirates blasted five goals past host Spencerville on Monday night as they opened up NWC play with a 5-1 victory over the Bearcats.  Reagan Mittendorf opened the scoring for Bluffton with 30:27 remaining in the first half as she utilized a lead pass to bounce a ball past Spencerville keeper Sydney LeMar to give her team a 1-0 advantage.  Spencerville pulled to even at 1-1 with 24:20 to go before halftime as Arianna McMichael zipped a goal off of a bounce from a teammates header past Bluffton's Julia Mehaffie for her first goal of the season.  After a Bearcat defender found herself called for a handball in the box, Mittendorf ripped a shot bottom left on the ensuing penalty kick for a score to give Bluffton back a one goal lead with 11:58 to go before the break.  Heading into the halftime break the Pirates outshot the Bearcats 16-1 as well as notching 10 shots on goal to the hosts on...

  LIMA - The St. Marys Roughriders opened their 2020 season with a sluggish first half but found a way to pull it all together in the second half as they raced past host Bath 27-7 on Friday night.  Though they were forced to punt four times and turned the ball over twice in the first half, the Roughriders offense utilized short fields on five of their second half series to push points onto the Bath scoreboard.  Twice in the first half the St. Marys offense found themselves inside the Wildcats 20 but were forced to send out the defensive unit thanks to a fumble at the goal line and a turnover on downs.  Bath's offense fared about as well as the Riders did in the scoring department as they saw their first drive come to an end on a Tanner Howell forced fumble and followed by a plethora of punts on their remaining opening half drives.  On the second play of the third quarter it was Howell again who victimized the Cats offense as he stepped in front of a pass from fr...