Marysville Wins Season Opener

From the Capital Gazette:

ROSSVILLE — For three years, Rossville has been the top Dawg in Class 3A, capturing three straight state championships.

 

Friday night might not have been a true changing of the guard with an entire season yet to be played out, but Marysville sure sent a message that there’s another Dog ready to step forward and challenge for the title.

After letting an upset of Rossville get away late in last year’s season opener, Marysville didn’t leave any hope for a comeback in Friday’s 2017 opener at Rossville. The visiting Bulldogs hung 36 points on the three-time reigning champions in the first half and never looked back on their way to a 52-13 statement rout.

“We’ve been waiting a long time for this one,” Marysville quarterback Jack Blumer said. “Last year, they got us at the end there and this year we weren’t going to let that happen.”

Blumer made sure of it with a monster night. Coming off a breakout junior year, the senior quarterback single-handedly picked apart Rossville’s young defense, throwing for 316 yards and six touchdowns and adding another rushing touchdown.

Of course, Blumer was quick to note that having a target such as 6-foot-3 senior Gabe Pieschl, made things pretty easy. The duo helped Marysville to the Class 3A state basketball title last winter and spent much of Friday night playing a football version of alley-oop with Blumer simply putting the ball in a spot where Pieschl could go get it and watch his teammate turn it more times than not into six points.

Pieschl had six catches with four of them going for touchdowns of 73, 21, 61 and 11 yards as he finished with 192 yards receiving.

“I like getting him the ball because I know something special is going to happen,” Blumer said.

As big as the touchdown connections to Pieschl were, it was a 53-yarder from Blumer to Derek Roever that might have been the play of the game for Marysville. After the Bulldogs had scored on their first drive of the game, a 19-yard run by Blumer, Rossville answered when Sheldon Hulbert hit Elijah Daughty over the middle for a 76-yard strike that gave the Bulldawgs a 7-6 lead.

Having to replace all but one offensive starter off last year’s title team, the quick-strike score seemed to be a necessary jolt of confidence.

Instead, Marysville answered with three straight touchdowns, including one-play scoring drives on touchdown passes to Roever and Pieschl.

“That was huge for our kids,” Marysville coach Dustin Heuer said. “When you’ve got a team with the tradition Rossville has, you don’t want to leave a possession on the field. That kind of happened to us last year where we’d give up something big and they wouldn’t let us have it right back. What I was happy about was every time they scored, we came right back and that says a lot about our disposition.”

Once Marysville got rolling, Rossville couldn’t come up with enough answers to stay withing striking distance. Hulbert threw for 207 yards in his first start at quarterback, but 146 of it came on Rossville’s touchdowns, hitting Tronnie Blair on a 70-yarder on the first play of the second half.

That got Rossville within 36-13, but Marysville came right back with the fourth Blumer-to-Pieschl touchdown connection and the Bulldawgs were done.

“They’re experienced and talented and they put together some good schemes for tonight,” Rossville coach Derick Hammes said. “They were a handful for us.

“It’s a starting point for us and we wanted to get the season underway and find our exactly where we were. It didn’t go the way we wanted obviously, but we recognized as a staff that we had some young kids and we have to find the right combinations and shore up our fundamentals.”

Marysville (1-0)22 14 8 8—52

Rossville (0-1)  7     0 6 0—13

Mary — Blumer 19 run (run failed)

Ross — Daughty 76 pass from Hulbert (Reeves kick)

Mary — Roever 53 pass from Blumer (Blumer run)

Mary — Pieschl 73 pass from Blumer (Roever run)

Mary — Pieschl 21 pass from Blumer (run failed)

Mary — Pieschl 61 pass from Blumer (Backus pass from Blumer)

Ross — Blair 70 pass from Hulbert (kick failed)

Mary — Pieschl 11 pass from Blumer (Blumer run)

Mary — Hornbeak 13 pass from Blumer (Blumer run)

GAME IN FIGURES

… Mary … Ross

First downs … 22 … 11

Rushes-yards … 39-147 … 32-124

Passing … 316 … 212

Comp-Att-Int … 15-17-0 … 9-23-2

Punts … 3-37.7 … 6-26.5

Fumbles-Lost … 5-1 … 0-0

Penalties-Yards … 4-30 … 7-60

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING — Marysville: Roever 7-22, Blumer 8-51, Hornbeak 4-23, Latta 7-20, Team 1-minus 2, Slupianek 10-28, Champoux 2-5. Rossville: Hulbert 15-82, Daughty 5-11, Johnson 8-9, Foster 2-minus 3, Sowers 1-10, Carver 1-15.

PASSING — Marysville: Blumer 15-17-0, 316 yards. Rossville: Hulbert 8-22-2, 207 yards, Carver 1-1-0, 5 yards.

RECEIVING — Marysville: Pieschl 6-192, Wetter 2-29, Rader 1-2, Roever 3-57, Backus 2-23, Hornbeak 1-13. Rossville: Daughty 2-74, Johnson 2-21, Foster 3-42, Blair 1-70, Sumner 1-5.