Wittenberg routs Hiram in NCAC opener to even record at 1-1

Almost two years after they beat Ohio Wesleyan in the 2019 regular-season finale, one year after the 2020 season was cancelled because of the pandemic and two weeks after a season-opening 38-16 loss to SUNY Cortland, the Tigers opened North Coast Athletic Conference play with their typical dominant performance against the Terriers.

Wittenberg is 20-0 against Hiram and has outscored it 1,102-137. The teams played once in 1920 and have played all but one season since 2000.

A tougher stretch awaits. Wittenberg returns to action at 7 p.m. next Saturday at Denison (2-1, 2-0), which blanked Allegheny 31-0 in its NCAC opener and then won 59-12 at Oberlin on Saturday. A game at Ohio Wesleyan (3-0, 2-0) on Oct. 2 and a home game against DePauw (1-1, 1-0) on Oct. 9 follow.

“Obviously, it’s one game at a time,” Wittenberg coach Joe Fincham said. “Tonight was good for our team. I think it’ll go a long way in helping us going forward. We’ll start worrying about the Big Red come tomorrow.”

Wittenberg led Hiram 37-0 at halftime thanks to touchdowns by four players. Bryce Anderson ran for two scores. Reed Hall and LaShon Bright had touchdown runs. Sam Kayser caught a 5-yard touchdown pass from Bobby Froehlich.

The Tigers stretched their lead to 44-0 in the third quarter on a 16-yard touchdown pass from Froelich to Jake Saus.

The senior Froelich, who was a first-time starter in 2019, the last time Wittenberg played a season, did not start the opener but took over when Collin Brown took a hard hit and left the game in the second half. Froehlich completed 15 of 18 passes for 200 yards against Hiram.

“We felt like it was best to protect Collin at this time,” Fincham said. “Obviously, Bobby’s played a lot. We felt he would give us the best chance today and long term felt like we were better off resting Collin.”

Hall, a sophomore making his college debut, led the running game with 139 yards on 15 carries, while Anderson, a junior who appeared in two games as a freshman in 2019, ran 16 times for 105 yards.

Wittenberg gained 261 yards on the ground after being limited to minus 2 yards by Cortland.

“We talked for the last couple of weeks about how we didn’t want our last outing to be indicative of what type of team we had for the the next nine to 10 weeks. It was nice to get out and run the ball early. When you struggle as badly as we did in our first ball game, going out and having success early so you can kind of regain some confidence in yourself goes a long way.”

Kayser, who caught four passes for 85 yards in the opener, led the receivers with six catches for 116 yards.

Mike Knock, a senior defensive tackle from Springboro High School, led the defense with six tackles, including 2½ sacks. He also forced a fumble that was recovered by Levi Morrison. Centerville grad Connor Walls, a sophomore defensive end, added two sacks.

Hiram (1-2) scored all three of its touchdowns in the fourth quarter against Wittenberg’s reserves.