By BEN MURPHY

For the Journal

GAYLORD — Munising has now become the latest victim of Gaylord St. Mary star running back Cal Gilling.

The workhorse Snowbird torched the Mustangs for four touchdowns and 250 yards on Saturday, handing Munising a 28-14 Division 8 pre-district loss.

“We knew coming in that they had a good power running game,” Munising head coach Jeff Seaberg said.

“You can’t tackle him as high as we did and expect to get him down. He’s one heck of a running back though.”

The Mustangs started the game with a big 30-yard return on the opening kickoff by Alec Blank, who brought the ball to his own 46-yard line before finally getting tracked down by the St. Mary special teams.

However, Munising could not convert on the good field position as it was stuffed on a pair of running plays and had an incomplete pass on third down.

Later, after another three-and-out for the Munising offense, St. Mary got on the scoreboard.

The Snowbirds handed the ball off to Gilling on 10 of the drive’s 12 plays, and he finished it off on the first play of the second quarter with a 3-yard touchdown, diving just over the goal-line.

St. Mary then made the extra point through to make the score 7-0 just two seconds into the second frame.

A few minutes later, the Snowbirds scored again with Gilling taking it to the house on a long run. With the extra point, St. Mary led 14-0 with 9:25 to play in the half.

After not finding success on the ground to this point, Munising opted to dive into the passing game.

This paid off in a big way as Blank, on third-and-nine at his own 35-yard line, heaved a long pass down the left side-line for Josh Huotari.

Huotari caught the ball in stride at the St. Mary 40, then out-sprinted the defense the rest of the way for a touchdown, closing it to 14-6 with just over six minutes to play in the half.

“Alec made some good throws,” Seaberg said. “They did a good job of getting our rushes up the middle stuffed. Our running game wasn’t working but we did a good job throwing the ball and our guys did a good job getting open and catching it.”

With 90 seconds remaining in the half though, the Snowbirds scored again. They marched down the field in seven plays, cashing in on a fourth-and-goal from the 3-yard line. The extra point made it 21-6 at the half.

In the third quarter, Gilling took a pitch to the left side of the field and ran uncontested into the end-zone, all but icing the game at 28-6 with 5:16 to go in the frame.

The Mustangs did close out the scoring with 7:39 to play in the game, as they got a Blank-to-Anthony Mattson connection across the middle for a 35-yard touchdown.

“It was an up and down year but it was good enough to get into the playoffs,” Seaberg said.