BEREA, Ohio – The Otterbein football team suffered a road loss to begin Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) play Saturday evening, finishing on the low end of a 33-3 score to host Baldwin Wallace inside George Finnie Stadium.
The Cardinals, now 1-1, will be right back up near Cleveland next weekend when they travel to John Carroll on Saturday for start time at 1:30 p.m. Baldwin Wallace improves to 2-0 after handily defeating Alma, 63-21, in its recent opener.
Otterbein's offense struggled moving the ball throughout, finishing the game with just 130 yards of total offense, achieving seven first downs and converting 1 of 12 third-down opportunities.
The Cardinal defense played relatively well despite being put in some bad spots throughout, and helped provide early momentum with safety
Blayne Voorhees delivering a hard hit and forcing a fumble to be scooped up by linebacker
Ryan Tuchow. Running back
Dakota Smith then broke a nice run into BW territory, and the drive ended with a 29-yard field goal from
David Hoyle.
The Yellow Jackets responded on the first play of the second period, finishing off a nine-play, 47-yard scoring drive with a short passing TD from Jake Hudson to Chad Steinwachs.
Both defenses held their own as the quarter progressed, and BW flipped field position by intercepting a fourth-down pass as the Cards were driving. The return sequence put the hosts in the red zone, but Otterbein's defense came up timely yet again and limited the damage to a chip-shot field goal.
The Cardinal offense continued coming up empty, and Baldwin Wallace extended the lead to 16-3 by halftime after forcing a three-and-out and then going 49 yards in just seven plays. Hudson found Lyle Grant for a 16-yard score, and the point after sailed wide right as BW carried the two-score advantage into intermission. All three of the host scoring drives began in Otterbein territory.
BW added to its lead in the second half by compiling an eight-play, 82-yard scoring drive in the third quarter, using the wildcat formation to convert a goal-line opportunity early in the fourth and capping the scoring with a late field goal. The Yellow Jackets finished the game with 398 yards of offense and went 9 of 15 on third down.
Smith ran nine times for 42 yards in the Cardinal backfield while
Reed Tucker caught three passes for 30 yards. Tuchow led the defense in tackling again with another game-high 10 stops, including 2.5 for loss.
Niall Lewison chipped in nine tackles.
Hudson connected on 24 of 31 passes for 282 yards and two scores for BW, which also received seven grabs and 82 yards from Steinwachs.
