The Marion High School football team was caught flat-footed by Hoisington’s opening kickoff return, and the Warriors never recovered their balance as the Cardinals hammered them 32-6 Friday night in Marion.
?For some reason we just did not have the spark that we needed last Friday,? coach Grant Thierolf said. ?We will just go back to the beginning this week and work on all of the little things that we did not do well. That is about all that we can do. We are a good football team that happened to have a bad night. Happens at all levels and all you can do is go back to work, just like they will be expected to do when they are done with football and working in their careers.?
Hoisington returned the opening kick to the Marion 10-yard line, scored three plays later, and buried the Warriors with a 2-point conversion for an 8-0 lead. The touchdown was the first of three scores by Tanner Klug.
Marion struck back behind a pair of big plays by Colten Johnson, who caught a long pass and scored on a 32-yard touchdown run as the Warriors marched effectively against the Cardinals. These were the only highlights of Marion’s night, and resulted in an 8-6 deficit when a problem with the snap or led to a failed point-after try.
Hoisington broke another long kick return, but had the big gain called back from the Marion 30 to their own 15, but the long field mattered little. Marion forced a punt at the end of a long series and the Cardinals forced a 3-and-out. Klug scored his second touchdown at the outset of the second quarter. Klug scored again midway through the third quarter and Danton Riedl tacked on a late score at the end of the third quarter. Klug was 4-for-4 on conversion runs.
?Hoisington just played a more physical game than we did and they did control the line of scrimmage,? Thierolf said. ?We just could not get their offense off the field and that was disappointing to us.?
Hoisington out-rushed the Warriors 308-67 and had 37 more offensive snaps than Marion. The Warriors committed just one turnover, but went 0-for-2 on fourth down and punted five times. Hoisington was 3-for-3 on fourth down and punted twice.
?We never had the ball long enough to get anything going offensively but once again give Hoisington the credit for that,? Thierolf said. ?They were just better prepared and played with more emotion than we did.?
Coming?Marion plays at Ellinwood next week.
