Bowling Green sophomore quarterback Grant Gillispie (15) looks for an open receiver as he scrambles out of the pocket against Bryan on Friday at Bobcat Stadium. Bryan defeated Bowling Green 32-14. (Scott W. Grau | Sentinel-Tribune)

Bowling Green sophomore quarterback Grant Gillispie ran for a touchdown and threw for another in the second quarter, and suddenly the Bobcats were looking good with a 14-3 second quarter lead over Bryan Friday night at Bobcat Stadium.

Then, the mistakes started, and it resulted in 29 unanswered points scored by the Golden Bears, who went on to win 32-14.

“Right now, we’re a team searching for an identity and searching for more guys to step up to play,” said BG coach Shawn Kiss. “We’ve got a few seniors that play their tails off. I couldn’t ask for more from them, but we need some more guys to step up and make plays. We had a lot of dropped passes, a lot of false starts, a lot of mistakes that just hurt us. It killed us.”

After Bryan senior Carter Luce kicked a 27-yard field goal with 41 seconds remaining in the first half, BG’s offense started to click.

Gillispie scored on a five-yard run to cap off a 10-play, 50-yard drive, providing the Bobcats their first points of the season to put BG up 7-3 with 9:32 remaining in the first half.

After the BG defense forced a three-and-out, Gillispie hit senior receiver Colby Joseph wide open on the ride side of the end zone and the Bobcats led 14-3 with just over six minutes remaining in the half.

Then Bryan’s offense began to click. An 11-play, 60-yard drive culminated in a three-yard TD pass from freshman quarterback Jake Arnold to sophomore Hunter Watson with 1:08 left in the half. Senior back Cade Carlin ran in the two-point conversion to bring the Bears to within three points, 14-11.

It looked as if the Bobcats were going to escape with a halftime lead when Arnold, from his defensive back position, jumped a hitch route, intercepted a Gillispie pass and scampered 25 yards into the end zone untouched with 47 seconds showing, and Bryan was celebrating an 18-14 lead at the break.

Bryan scored twice in the second half, on Arnold’s four-yard pass to junior tight end Jacob Uran, and on a 60-yard pass from sophomore quarterback Rhett McGill to junior receiver Anthony Weber.

“We came out, we made a huge play right before halftime to take the lead with the pick-six,” Bryan coach Scott Staten said. “Our kids just battled. It is all the things that we have been preaching to them all along to see it all come together it’s really satisfying to see it all play out on a Friday night.”

Both teams had lost by big margins in their season opener. BG to Perrysburg, 64-0, and Bryan to Van Wert, 42-7. It was a matter of who was going to respond.

“I think us just coming back after that Van Wert game where we had so much potential in the first half, we did so many things right, and then we end up falling apart in the second half,” said Staten.

“With us being so young, just trying to turn things around here, we need benchmark wins like this to keep these kids believing in what we are trying to build as a program. So, it’s a huge win for us and it says a lot for these kids just to be able to handle last week, but also to be able to handle the first half here.”

Bryan’s Connor Hogan, a 6-foot-1, 225-pound senior offensive lineman and linebacker, saw a long night of mistakes by both teams, and a game held up repeatedly by cramping issues, penalties, and injuries, but his team got through it.

“We definitely played as a team, and we handled adversity very well,” Hogan said. “A lot of dudes in the third and fourth quarters went down with cramps, but other guys stepped up. We played hard.

“We got dudes who stepped up and we played as a team. When we messed up on a couple drives — they got some lucky blitzes and everything, but we bounced back. We didn’t complain. We didn’t yell at each other and everything went smoothly.”

For Bryan, Arnold completed 9-of-13 passes for 83 yards, while Gillispie completed 10-of-22 passes for 134 yards, but he had two interceptions.

One interception was on a pass that should have been caught by his receiver, but it went through his hands into Bryan’s defensive back’s hands, and most of Gillispie’s passes were on target, just dropped repeatedly.

BG senior back Antwon Lawrence caught two passes for 47 yards and he ran for 22 yards on 12 carries and Gillispie ran for 22 yards on 14 carries.

Joseph caught three passes for 34 yards, senior Kentin Shank had two catches for 29 yards, senior Koltin Shank caught one pass for nine yards, sophomore Mason Snyder had a catch for eight yards, and junior Carsen Rath had a seven-yard reception.