Minster Defeats Spencerville In Series Finale 21-10

By Bruce Monnin

SPENCERVILLE - The Minster Wildcats visited Spencerville for the last scheduled time in their series, but they had to make the trip twice. The game was suspended by lightning at halftime and resumed Saturday afternoon, at which time Minster completed the 21-10 victory over the Bearcats.

It developed into a hard hitting, no finesse game. “I think both teams deserve credit that they came back at five o’clock on a Saturday afternoon and played so hard,” complimented Minster coach Whit Parks.

In the first quarter, Ty Parks connected on a 44 yard touchdown pass to Chris Stueve to give Minster the early 7-0 lead. A 36 yard Spencerville field goal narrowed the Wildcat lead to 7-3, then Parks scored on a three yard touchdown run to make the score 14-3 at halftime.

Minster caught the first break of the second half when they recovered a Bearcat fumble at their own 42 yard line. The Wildcats returned the favor with a bonus when Parks fumbled at the Spencerville two yard line and Lucas Nourse scooped up the loose ball and returned it 98 yards for a touchdown to trim the Minster lead to 14-10.

Two series later, the Wildcats put together a time consuming 19 play drive which included two fourth down conversions. Unfortunately for Minster, their third fourth down play of the series was stopped short of the goal line and Spencerville took over on downs.

“That’s probably what I am disappointed in the most, the fact that we fumbled the ball on the two yard line and had the ball on the one yard line and couldn’t get it in,” commented Parks. “Good football teams just can’t let that happen.”

The Minster defense forced Spencerville to punt after three plays, at which time the Wildcats needed just five plays to claim the final score of the game. Ty Parks carried the ball four times for 33 yards on the drive, capping it off with a one yard touchdown plunge. Brendan Whitford’s third extra point of the night made the final score 21-10.

Minster compiled over twice the total yardage as Spencerville, leading in that statistic 375-179 yards. Parks was the individual statistical leader for the Wildcats as he rushed 34 times for 226 yards and two touchdowns, while completing 5-13 passes for another touchdown and 109 yards.

“They (Spencerville) were tough defensively,” added Parks. “We’re not very good yet, but hopefully we’ll improve next week. We’ll have to.”

Next week Friday Minster travels to Versailles to take on the 1-0 defending D4 state champion Versailles Tigers.

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Minster 7 7 0 7 — 21

Spencerville 3 0 7 0 — 10