St. Henry able to rebound in a big way

ST. HENRY - The St. Henry Redskin football team recovered from their first loss last week to Marion Local in a big way as they demolished the New Bremen Cardinals, 42-6, in Midwest Athletic Conference play on Homecoming Night at the Wally Post Athletic Complex.

" think for four quarters I was pretty happy with the way we came back after last week," said St. Henry Jeff Starkey. "You have to bounce back every week because you are going to play great football teams every week. We were a little sluggish early but I thought we played well, especially in the second half."

"This game was very difficult for us tonight, this was a game that we thought would really get the ball rolling for us," said New Bremen coach Rob Messick. "Our biggest thing, is that this game was lost in the weight room, weight training and that is something that has to be fixed. To play against this caliber of team every week, we have to get stronger."

The St. Henry offense found its stride on this night rolling up 389 yards of offense, equally balanced 198 passing and 191 passing.

Redskin quarterback Brad Stahl had a great night as he completed 11-of-16 passes to four different receivers, without an interception and three scores. Corey Puthoff led the way with five catches for 98 and a score while Tony Stahl added 51 yards and a score on three grabs.

On the ground for St. Henry, junior running back Brent Prenger was the only story as he carried the ball 22 times for a game high 177 yards and three short touchdowns.

On the defensive side, the Redskins gave up huge chunks of yardage, 343 yards to be exact, but they gave up just one score. New Bremen had the ball seven times in St. Henry, scoring once, turning the ball over four times on downs while St. Henry forced two turnovers.

"We made some personnel changes this week and we tried to keep things simple offensively and I think to make some improvements offensively we are going to have to keep things simple," said Starkey. "Defensively, we gave up more rushing yards then we would of liked to, but at the same time, we kept them out of the end zone. Overall, we still have to make more improvement this week because we play another great team next week in Coldwater."

"Give St. Henry credit, their defense, was in the don't break mode tonight," said Messick "It seemed like whenever we would get the ball down in the 35- to 25-yard zone going in, we would have a negative yard or we would not make a completion and that was big, that was big.

"Defensively for us tonight we could just not stop their rushing game," continued Messick. "We were really concerned about their passing game and obviously they stepped up their running game and it really hurt us."

The first two series of this game gave the fans in attendance a glimpse of the way the rest of this game would unfold. New Bremen took the opening kick and moved on the strength of 33 rushing yards by Brennon Speckman to a first down at the St. Henry 22 were the drive stalled. On first down, Kyle Kremer knocked down a Bryce Bergman pass. After two running plays gained six yards, on fourth down Bergman misfired on a pass to turn the ball over to the Skins.

Taking over on the 16, St. Henry went 84 yards in 10 plays, with Brad Stahl hooking up with brother Tony for a 25-yard score. On the drive, Brad Stahl was 3-for-3 for 46 yards.

Next week, St. Henry travels to Coldwater while New Bremen returns home to play Parkway.