SIDNEY — New Bremen scored all its points in the first half and cruised in the second half to a 41-0 victory over Lehman Catholic in a nonconference game on Saturday at Sidney Memorial Stadium.
It was a setback for the Cavaliers (1-1) following a season-opening win over Lima Perry last week. Lehman managed 93 yards of offense and committed three turnovers. The squad was a combined 3 for 13 on third- and fourth-down conversion attempts.
“That’s a tough squad,” first-year Lehman coach Chris Kash said of the Cardinals. “We’ve just got to learn from it. Embrace adversity and move on to Week 3.”
Kash takes over following a 1-9 season. He said there have consistently been close to 40 players participating in workouts since he took over in January — a large uptick for a program that was struggling to field a team a couple of years ago.
“I think they’re embracing everything, taking the challenges as they come,” Kash said. “… The culture was a little down after having a 1-9 season, which is to be expected. But they were ready to get back after it and prove themselves.”
The Cavaliers battled to a scoreless tie with former Northwest Central Conference rival Perry in Week 1 but scored two touchdowns in each the third and fourth quarters to earn a 26-6 win.
Lehman will face another former NWCC rival this Friday when it travels to Waynesfield-Goshen (2-0). The squad will then open Three Rivers Conference play in Week 4 by traveling to defending league champion Milton-Union.
“We knew the first four weeks were not going to be easy for us,” Kash said. “Hopefully when we get to Milton in two weeks, we’ll be a little less apprehensive about it, about the battle. Hopefully we come out of this with not many injuries and get a win next week.”
New Bremen, which beat Lima Bath in Week 1, posted a second consecutive shutout to start the season and moved the ball with ease in short fields on Saturday.
David Homan completed 3-of-5 passes for 53 yards with one touchdown and one interception and ran for 37 yards and two TDs on eight carries. Hunter Schaefer ran for 49 yards on four carries. Backup QB Ryland Busse completed 4-of-4 passes for 29 yards.
“We wanted to make sure we came out and tried to get out to a big lead and capitalize on some of their mistakes, and we did,” New Bremen coach Chris Schmidt said. “We started school this week, playing on a Saturday night instead of Friday, so I was wondering what we were going to get. I didn’t want to come out here and be sloppy.”
It was the Cavaliers that had some sloppy moments.
Lehman went three-and-out on its first possession, and a bad snap on the punt attempt resulted in New Bremen recovering at the Cavaliers’ 1-yeard line. Homan ran it in on the next play to give the Cardinals a 7-0 lead.
“There’s not many times on your first drive you get the ball at the opposing team’s 1, but sometimes when you get that, you can kind of relax and think it’s going to come easy,” Schmidt said. “For the most part, I was pleased with our guys that they kept the same intensity level after that.”
Lehman got one first down on its next drive but then had to punt. New Bremen fielded a short punt at Lehman’s 45 and scored three plays later when Schaefer ran in from 31 yards out to boost the lead to 14-0.
New Bremen fielded another punt at Lehman’s 42 after another three-and-out and scored four plays later when Homan threw a 32-yard TD pass to Aaron Thieman with 2:15 left.
Turner Lachey intercepted a pass for Lehman to end New Bremen’s next drive, but the Cavaliers fumbled at their own 2-yard line two plays later, and Evan Eyink recovered for a touchdown to boost the lead to 28-0 with 10:44 left in the second quarter.
Homan scored on a 2-yard TD run with 6:56 left and Aaron Thieman scored on a 2-yard TD run with 1:32 left.
The entire second half was played with a running clock; the Cardinals played JV or freshmen players the entire second half.
New Bremen is scheduled to open Midwest Athletic Conference play by traveling to Parkway this Friday.
