Marmion coasts to win over rival Chargers

Font Size

Email

Bookmark

Black Text

White Text

AURORA -- Aurora's crosstown and Suburban Catholic rivalry game took an extra dimension on Friday as Marmion and Aurora Central Catholic each pursued its first conference win of the season.

ACC did most of the pursuing in this year's edition of the game, but it was Cadet running backs and receivers who were being chased as Marmion built a huge lead at the half and coasted to victory by a final score of 40-14.

By the time the fans had all found their seats, the visiting Cadets had jumped to a 20-0 margin at the 6:50 mark of the first quarter.

Matt Pircon grabbed a 39-yard scoring strike from Ricky Bird, and Bobby Miles was on the receiving end of an 81-yard touchdown pass about two minutes later. Neither man seemed to have a blue Central jersey within 15 yards of him.

"The safeties went in and we took the opportunity," Pircon said. "No audible. Coach saw the play and we executed."

"Last year they (ACC) stopped our run, so we anticipated that a little bit," Marmion coach Dan Thorpe said. "That's a hard pass to complete when he's wide open and an even harder pass to catch."

On the first play after the kickoff, Juan Avila separated the ball from ACC quarterback Mike Adams at the Central 10-yard line, and T.J. Lally scooped it up and ran for a 7-ard score to finish Marmion's initial flurry of touchdowns.

"I came through the 'A' gap and was chasing Mike Adams from the backside. Our defensive end Juan Avila tackled him and stripped the ball," Lally said. "It was just bouncing there so I picked it up and ran it in."

Marmion (3-5 overall, 1-5 SCC) then had a traditional drive of 58 yards which finished with a Bird to Sean Fichtel touchdown pass of 16 yards as the second quarter opened.

The Chargers finally came alive and executed a 79-yard march which was finished on a 1-yard run by Andrew Scott with 5:38 remaining in the half. The key play of the drive was a 40-yard completion from Adams to Matt Wagner and ACC trailed 26-6.

Pircon quickly swept the left side untouched for a 59-yard touchdown as Marmion's offense continued unchecked. Nico Jimenez added a 7-yard jaunt as the Cadets led 40-6 at the intermission.

"We practiced all week on specific things that we knew they were going to do," ACC coach Mike Curry said. "When we acted like we had never seen it before, it was very frustrating."

Curry must have had some "encouraging" words for his squad as the ACC offense came out and marched 65 yards in less than three minutes to the narrow the margin slightly.

Adams ran for 29 yards and followed that with a spectacular 22-yard score during which he hurdled a Marmion defender in the open field.

"I saw an opening down the sideline, so I took it. They had been taking my legs out all game, but I got my feet set and was able to jump over him," Adams said.

More importantly for the Chargers (0-8, 0-6), they were able to limit Marmion to three second-half possessions. The ACC defense forced two punts and took over on downs after holding the Cadets.

"It's an old cliché, but you play the way you practice. We had excellent practices this week and we came out and executed," Thorpe said. "Last year, Central was up at the line pretty tight. We anticipated the same defense that they played last year, because they stopped us. We put it in our playbook and executed it."