COLUMBUS — Bucyrus faced a tall order when the Redmen traveled to Grandview Heights Friday night — both literally and figuratively.

Grandview Heights entered the game 2-0 and was a playoff team a year ago. The Bobcats also feature 6-foot-6 tight end Luke Lachey who has verbally committed to Iowa next year.

The Redmen stayed with for Grandview Heights for most of three quarters — trailing just 3-0 at halftime. But the offense sputtered in the second half and the Bobcats eventually wore down the defense en route to a 29-0 shutout of the Redmen.

“We had opportunities. But (Grandview Heights) is a good team,” Bucyrus coach Matt Makeever said. “The kids were up for it. If there’s a zero on the board, that’s on me as the offensive coordinator. That can’t happen.”

The Redmen played like anything but underdogs in the early going. After winning the toss and deferring to the second half, the defense did its job, forcing a punt.

The offense then mounted a 12-play drive that got as close as the Grandview Heights 10, but I ended with a missed 34-yard field goal.

It turned out to be the story of the night for the Bucyrus offense. Fortunately, the defense kept it close for a while. The only score the Bobcats could muster in the first half was a 23-yard field goal in the second quarter.

“That first half, our defense played really well,” Makeever said. “The whole second quarter, field position was really bad against our defense. They did some great things. (Grandview Heights) had great field position on their field goal. They just kept us in the game.”

While the Redmen did a reasonable job on Lachey — who finished with seven catches for 41 yards — running back Darrion Davis eventually became the difference.

Davis carried the ball 26 times for 119 yards and two touchdowns. He scored on runs of two and eight yards in the second quarter to increase the Bobcats’ advantage to 16-0.

Grandview Heights tacked on two scores in the fourth quarter. The first was on a 20-yard interception return by Alex Sterneker and a window-dressing three-yard toss from quarterback Kyle Casey to Lachey with 1:48 left in the game. Lachey’s biggest play of the night came on defense when his interception return deep into Bucyrus territory set up Davis’ second touchdown.

The Redmen had one chance to get on the board in the second half. They moved the ball to the Grandview Heights one early in the fourth quarter. But a personal foul penalty moved it back to the 16 and they eventually turned it over on downs.

“We had a drive in the first half we didn’t finish. We left with zero points — we missed a field goal,” Makeever said. “We got down to the one — we didn’t finish that. We’re close. We had some good drives there. But we need to be more consistent.”

Ben Seibert completed seven of 18 passes with two interceptions for just 55 yards. Jaylen Zehner caught five for 42 yards. Devon Newland ran 10 times for 32 yards as the Redmen totaled only 91 yards of total offense.

One bright spot were the kick returns of Hastin Zier, two that went for 52 and 69 yards. Zier totaled 167 return yards.

Casey completed 12 of 19 passes with an interception for 103 yards. Charlies James caught two for 42 yards to go with Lachey’s seven for 41. The Bobcats totaled 285 yards of offense.

Bucyrus (1-2) finished with eight penalties for 53 yards, an improvement on the 11 calls for 115 yards at Cardington.

“We improved in that area. That was a focus this week,” Makeever said. “We left last game with 11 penalties, but we’re not all the way there yet. We’ve got to get better at all phases of the game.”

Box score

Score by quarters

Bucyrus                              0          0         0          0   — 0

Grandview Heights         0           3         13        13   — 29

Scoring summary

Second quarter

GH — Hallie Georskey 23 field goal, 5:53.

Third quarter

GH — Darrion Davis 2 run (kick failed), 7:00.

GH — Davis 8 run (Georskey kick), 4;53.

Fourth quarter

GH — Alex Sterneker 20 interception return (Georskey kick), 11:49.

GH — Luke Lachey 3 pass from Kyle Casey (kick failed), 1:48.

Individual statistics

Passing

Bucyrus: Ben Seibert 7-18-2 55; Lincoln Mollenkopf 0-1-0 0.

Grandview Heights: Kyle Casey 12-19-1 103.

Rushing

Bucyrus: Devon Newland 10-32, Seibert 8-2, Mollenkopf 1-2.

Grandview Heights: Darrion Davis 26-119, Charlie James 2-32, Casey 6-16, Trey Cook 5-13, Luke Lachey 1-2.

Receiving

Bucyrus: Jaylen Zehner 5-42, Keaton Naufzinger 2-13.

Grandview Heights: Lachey 7-42, James 2-42, Cory Culp 1-17, Glenn Cribbs 1-5, Davis 1-(-1).

Team statistics

B          GH

First downs           8          14

Rushing             19-36      40-182

Passes                7-19-2     12-19-1

Yards passing       55         103

Total yards             91          285

Fumbles-lost       0-0           1-0

Punts-Avg          4-31.0    2-33.0

Penalties              8-53        4-35