Sidney coach Adam Doenges admits to being a little jealous this week.
His team’s opponent Friday, the Troy Trojans, stunned the entire area last week with an astonishing upset, 21-20 at Trotwood, a team that entered the game with a 33-game Greater Western Ohio Conference North winning streak. Troy, meanwhile, entered the game with a 1-5 record.
That upset came one week after Trotwood put a 59-21 beatdown on the Yellow Jackets at Sidney Memorial Stadium.
“We really wanted that to be us,” Doenges said of Trotwood’s streak being broken. “We thought we could do to Trotwood what Troy did, and give Troy the credit. Against Trotwood, you have to get out to an early lead and you have to win the turnover battle. And Troy did both those things. If you can do those two things, you have a good chance against them. We didn’t do that.”
So now the Jackets have to figure out a way to bring the Trojans back down to earth. They are under the leadership of a new coach this season, and one who is quite familiar to Shelby County. Matt Burgbacher annually took Fort Loramie to the playoffs during his tenure there.
“Troy has played a tough schedule,” Doenges said, referring to Troy’s now 2-5 mark. “They are really impressive, and if you watch them and don’t know they are 2-5, you’d never believe it. That’s a good football team, and they are still learning what coach Burgbacher wants. It’s definitely a program on the rise.”
The Jackets were flying high after four straight wins, but have taken it on the chin the past two weeks, first from Trotwood, and then last week at Vandalia in a 29-0 game.
“Vandalia had a good game plan,” said Doenges. “They did what we thought they were going to do and executed well. And we weren’t able to make plays. They brought a lot of pressure and it got to our guys. We weren’t able to adjust.”
Freshman quarterback Andre Gordon was taken to Children’s Hospital late in the game after getting the wind knocked out of him. But Doenges said the youngster is fine and a good bet to play Friday night. “We’ve been working with both quarterbacks, but we think Andre will be ready to go,” said the coach. “We’ll see how he bounces back.”
Troy quarterback Hayden Kotwica has thrown for 1,364 yards this season, completing 103 of 200 passes so far. He’s thrown for 14 touchdowns and been picked off eight times. He is also second on the team in rushing yards with 314, behind Marc Scordia’s 326.
Luke Robinson has caught 25 passes and Zach Boyer 19 for the Trojans.
“This is an important game for us,” said Doenges. “We knew after losing to Trotwood that we would still be in good position if we could win out. But that didn’t happen. So this is a week when we need to worry about ourselves and pay attention to detail. We still haven’t been able to put it all together.”
