Friday’s game
What: Carroll (1-5, 0-3 GCLC North) vs. Badin (2-4, 1-2 GCLC Central) at Fairfield, 7 p.m.
Where: Fairfield Stadium, Ohio 4 and Stadium Drive, Fairfield
Last meeting: Badin won 28-7 in 2015
Badin High School’s football team is preparing to take a different road trip for a home game.
The Rams usually play home games at Hamilton’s Virgil Schwarm Stadium, but it’s unavailable this week because of a Big Blue contest Friday and HHS homecoming festivities Saturday.
So Badin will head to Fairfield Stadium on Friday to host Carroll in a Greater Catholic League Coed Division crossover affair.
“It’s red, but Hamilton is blue … still no green either way,” Rams coach Bill Tenore said. “We’d like to just go win a football game.”
Carroll is 1-5 and will bring a five-game losing streak into this matchup of the GCLC’s lowest-scoring teams. Badin is 2-4 and has lost three of its last four games.
“I feel like Carroll’s a game that we’re capable of winning,” Tenore said. “It’s still my responsibility to put a good product out there in terms of being a good representative of Badin football. At times we look very good. We’ve just got to be more consistent. That’s part of being a young and inexperienced team.”
The Patriots are young as well, and they’re also dealing with more than a few injuries. They had to turn to their fourth-string quarterback, freshman Trevor Fox, in last Friday’s 35-17 loss to McNicholas.
The 5-foot-10, 160-pound Fox wasn’t bad, completing 12 of 27 passes for 182 yards and a touchdown with no interceptions.
“He was thrust into a role that I don’t think any high school kid at that age should have to go through,” Carroll coach Ben Rulli said. “But he did an outstanding job for us. He ran our offense the way we asked.”
Fox took over for senior Nick Riley (58 of 129, 477 yards, three TDs, five INTs), who has an injury that inhibits his ability to throw the ball.
Rulli said Riley might return to lead the Patriots’ spread offense against Badin. If not, Fox will be the QB and Riley will handle wide receiver and defensive back positions.
Junior Evan Howard (70 carries, 220 yards) and sophomore Frederick Butts (39 carries, 207 yards) are the Patriots’ top runners. The 6-3, 225-pound Butts rumbled to 114 yards against McNick.
“They’re not like the huge Carroll teams of the past, but I think they have good size,” Tenore said. “We match up OK with them. It looks like they’ve got a couple tall receivers.”
Rulli said his squad is maintaining a positive approach despite its record.
“People don’t realize there’s victories every week that don’t happen on Friday nights,” he said. “These kids are working their tails off. They’re going to be put in positions to make plays, and they’re representing the school every week. If at the end of the day it doesn’t work out for them, they can hold their heads high if they’re doing what we ask.
“This past Friday against McNick, it was the first time in quite some time that we put some things together. We didn’t give up an offensive touchdown in the second half. We outplayed them in the second half. That’s saying something for the maturity of these young kids.”
The Rams lead the series 20-6-1 and have won the last five meetings.
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