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Redmen, Negaunee win

By Journal Sports Staff

SAULT STE. MARIE — Marquette collected its first win under new head coach Eric Mason, shutting out Sault Ste. Marie 31-0 Friday night at VanCitters Field.

Marquette sophomore quarterback Austin Ridl passed for 108 yards and three touchdowns. The Redmen (1-2) put everything together as they controlled the Blue Devils, winning their fourth straight in the series between the U.P. rivals.

“We came out and played hard, and really the kids have been playing hard the last two weeks now, but we just haven’t had the results we wanted,” Mason said. “Tonight we put together a four-quarter effort, and came out with the win.

“We needed this. This is the kind of effort that we can build on, and hopefully this propels us to bigger things.”

The Redmen led 16-0 at halftime. Marquette drove 64 yards on its opening drive, capped by a 14-yard touchdown pass from Ridl to Collin Hicks. Ridl also added the PAT.

The Blue Devils gave up a safety to the Redmen in the second quarter, when the ball was snapped over punter Kris Pearce’s head and he fell on it in the end zone.

Sault High made another big mistake late in the half, fumbling a punt on its own 10-yard line. The Redmen cashed in with a 7-yard TD pass from Ridl to Hicks with 1:01 left before intermission.

Isaac Johnson scored on a 9-yard touchdown run in the third quarter, and Ridl threw a 21-yard touchdown pass to Kameron Karp in early in the fourth quarter.

Ridl finished 11-of-21 passing for 108 yards, three TDs and one interception. Hicks led the receivers with five catches for 40 yards.

Marquette compiled 180 rushing yards. Brady Wright had 77 yards on 18 carries, Ridl added 48 yards on eight carries and Johnson had 38 yards on seven tries.

“Our offensive line and running game stepped up,” Mason said. “We haven’t had that balanced attack yet until now. Our skill kids are very good, but you can’t rely on throwing the ball as many times as we were.

“We have 10 kids on this team who didn’t play football last year,” Mason said. “Each week they are growing, and getting better. We also had a really good defensive effort tonight. Defense is all effort. When a defense plays with that kind of want-to, it equals success.”

Sault High (2-1) coughed up three fumbles and also hurt themselves with mental mistakes throughout the game. Even one of the Blue Devils few big plays, a 37-yard pass from quarterback Jakob Davie to Bennette Swanson in the fourth quarter, was called back on penalty.

W. Iron Cty. 22, Manistique 7

At Iron River, Gage Larson rushed for 118 yards and a touchdown as West Iron improved to 3-0 with a 22-7 win over Manistique on Friday.

“They were tough,” said Wykons coach Mike Berutti, giving special credit to Emeralds running back Schyler Anderson’s 100-yard rushing performance. A week ago, Manistique got its first win since 2016, beating Gwinn 28-8.

West Iron struck first in the West Pac Iron Division game, scoring on a 34-yard pass from Trey Bociek to Noah Thomson. It was 14-7 at halftime as Andersen scored on a short plunge for Manistique and Noah Lewis ran to paydirt for the Wykons.

Larson added a 2-yard Wykons score in the third quarter. Along with a safety on a errant punt snap, it gave the Wykons a two-score cushion until the final gun.

“We were flat coming out,” said Berutti, noting his team held just a 16-12 advantage over the Emeralds in first downs. Bociek completed 2 of 5 passes for 31 yards with one interception.

The Emeralds were only 1 of 5 passing for 4 yards, but had 202 yards rushing. Andersen’s total came on 22 attempts.

West Iron had 245 yards rushing, with Larson having 25 of the team’s 47 carries.

Noah Lewis, with nine tackles, and Brayden Nelson, eight tackles and a sack, led the West Iron defense. Nathan Thomson had an interception.

Negaunee 28, Hancock 19

At Hancock, the Miners forced two turnovers and withstood a Bulldogs rally to notch their first win of the season.

Negaunee struck first with a 14-yard touchdown run by Jason Waterman in the first quarter and then the Miners went up by two scores not too long after that on a six-yard run by Jake Sikora.

After Hancock pulled within one touchdown on a short run by Cole Stuber, the Miners went back up by two on a 1-yard run by Lucas Nelson. With that touchdown and the conversion, Negaunee led 22-7.

The Bulldogs didn’t give up though. Connor LeClaire broke free for a 59-yard touchdown before the half to cut Hancock’s deficit to nine at the half at 22-13, and in the third quarter, they pulled within three of the Miners thanks to a 15-yard touchdown pass from Coltin Salani to Mason Mikesch. With the conversion, Hancock trailed 22-19.

However, Negaunee wasn’t shaken by the Bulldogs’ comeback and Nelson put the game away in the fourth quarter with a three-yard touchdown run.

The Miners were powered by their running game as they finished with 283 rushing yards, 127 of them coming from Waterman and 78 from Nelson.

Forest Pk. 80, Superior Ctl. 40

At Crystal Falls, offense wasn’t the problem for the Superior Central Cougars in an 80-40 loss to Forest Park here Friday in a Great Lakes Conference crossover football contest.

The Cougars got 340 yards passing and four touchdowns from quarterback Kyle Frusti and 250 receiving yards and four touchdowns from Zach Englund, but they couldn’t stop the Trojans’ offense.

“We weren’t making adjustments like we should have been making,” Cougars’ coach Sam Eggleston said. “We had trouble figuring out what the coaching staff wanted and it didn’t translate on the field. We had breakdowns in communication from the sideline to the field.”

The Cougars (2-1) also shot themselves in the foot with turnovers, committing three in the first half that led to three Trojan scores.

“It was one of those things where if we hung on to the ball we might have been in the driver’s seat,” Eggleston said. “Offensively, I wasn’t disappointed — especially the in first half. But we couldn’t keep the momentum up.”

The combination of Frusti to Englund began the game with an 87-yard connection for a TD on the first play. Englund also returned a kickoff for a TD.

“Obviously, that Frusti to Englund combination has pretty much been gold for us,” Eggleston said. “That was pretty much our entire offense there. If we could have given Kyle more time in the pocket in the second half it could have been a different story.”

Frusti also completed all five of his passes on two-point conversions. Two went to Lucas Kanerva, one to Englund, one to Kevin Wynn and one to Jack Rondeau. Clayton Collier added 70 yards receiving and a score. Parker Maki led the defense with 14 tackles, Rondeau had 12, and Collier and James Maki each had 11.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Writer Ryan Stieg, the Sault News, the Escanaba Daily Press and the Iron Mountain Daily News.

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