By Randy Wilker
Sports Correspondent
NEW BREMEN – Turnovers, penalties and big plays usually occur first a first year football team, but on Saturday night the New Bremen Cardinals looked like the first year team as the Olentangy Orange Pioneers, who are the first year team, defeated the Cardinals 38-20 in a non-league game at New Bremen.

“Olentangy played well tonight,” Cardinals head coach Rob Messick said. “They ran the ball very effective against us which is not a very good situation for us, but we didn’t play very inspiring defense and that made a huge difference.”
Things didn’t get started very well for New Bremen. They won the toss but elected to defer until the second half. The Pioneers received the opening kickoff, but were called for a personal foul on the first play moving the ball back to the 12 yardline.
After that everything Olentangy did went right as they moved the ball down to the 36 and sophomore Blake Joe broke loose for a 64-yard touchdown run. The extra point kick by Luke Rice was good making the score 7-0 with 9:26 left.
It didn’t take Olentangy very much time to get the ball right back. On the kickoff Spencer Rohr ran the ball out to midfield for the Cardinals, but after Caleb Williams completed a 29-yard pass to Corey Jutte, Jutte fumbled the ball and the Pioneers recovered on the Pioneer 20. In the game the Cardinals had three fumbles and an interception.
New Bremen was able to stop the Pioneers and force a punt giving New Bremen the ball at the 36. Following a two-yard loss, Caleb Williams attempted a pass to Phillip Borkowski that was incomplete, but Olentangy was called for interference giving New Bremen a first down.
Four plays later Williams completed a screen pass to Corey Jutte and Jutte nearly scored a 21-yard touchdown, but was knocked out of bounds at the one. Jutte did the honors to complete the touchdown on a run. His extra point kick tie the game at 7-all with 4:05 left. Throughout the game the Cardinals couldn’t get the running game going as they ran for only 54 yards.
“On offense we couldn’t run the football and it killed us,” Messick said. “If you can’t run the football you can’t do anything. That is where we got hurt bad.”
New Bremen got a break after the kickoff when Olentangy fumbled the ball at the own 44 and Kyle Craft recovered for New Bremen. On the first play from scrimmage Williams completed a perfect pass to Rohr for the touchdown. The extra point kick by Jutte was blocked giving New Bremen a 13-7 lead.
The Pioneers (2-0) completed a big 49-yard pass on the first play after the kickoff, but the drive bogged down and they had to settle for a 23-yard field by Rice to make the score 13-10 after one quarter.
Once again a turnover by the Cardinals led to a Pioneer touchdown in the second quarter. New Bremen moved the ball to the Pioneer 23 on a 27-yard pass to Rohr, but on the next play Jutte fumbled the ball and Olentangy recovered. Fourteen plays later Jake Vacheressescored the first of his three touchdowns with a five yard run. The extra point kick made the score 17-13 Olentangy with 2:35 left. During the drive the Cardinals were called for five penalties for 55 yards, including a 15-yard facemask and dead ball personal foul on the same play and a pass interference penalty on a third and 33 pass.
New Bremen had 12 penalties in the game for 127 yards, including five, 15-yard penalties. Olentangy had 10 penalties for 85 yards.
Things didn’t go much better for New Bremen in the second half as they fumbled on the first play after the kickoff and that led to an Olentangy touchdown on a 14-yard run by Vacheresse with 9:38 left.
After a Cardinal punt, Vacheresse scored his final touchdown on a 73-yard run with 6:50 left to make the score 31-13.
The Cardinals (1-1) scored their final touchdown on a five-yard pass from Williams to Jared Cox to close the score to 31-20 with 1:10 left, but one minute later, Corey Joe fired a perfect pass to Ross Smith and he took it 87 yards to make the final score 38-20.
“We had one drive (in the second quarter) where we had them at third and 33 and we let them out of that with a pass interference penalty,” Messick said. “We are not good enough to play ourselves. We can’t beat ourselves. We will have to play hard to recover from this.”
The Cardinals begin MAC play next Friday when the host the St. Henry Redskins at 7:30.