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MC dominates Wilmington, 63-21

Photo by Jordan Holland Marietta College’s Robert Nelson (87) goes up to catch a touchdown pass during a college football game against Wilmington Saturday at Don Drumm Stadium.

PARKERSBURG — Darrien Fields was walking around with a crown on his head after Marietta College’s 63-21 win against Wilmington Saturday at Don Drumm Stadium.

“Fitting,” said MC head coach Andy Waddle.

It’s been a season of royalty so far for Fields and his Pioneer teammates, who are off to their first 6-0 start since 1920. Marietta’s senior quarterback was 19 for 21 passing for 208 yards and five touchdowns and was named Homecoming King at halftime.

“It’s a pretty good day to say the least,” Fields said.

Asked how being 6-0 feels, Fields added, “It feels like it’s about time. We’ve been putting all this work in and setting the foundation for it and we knew it’d pay off sooner or later. Now that it’s paying off it’s a little bit relieving, but we do have to keep our foot on the pedal. We’ve never been 7-0 before and we’ve also never beat (next week’s opponent) John Carroll before. Going down there is going to be a huge challenge for us, but we’re up to it.”

Running back Tanner Clark eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark for the season with a 15-carry, 125-yard performance and had two touchdowns.

Marietta is excited about the great start but knows big challenges await the final four weeks with games against John Carroll, Otterbein, Baldwin Wallace and Mount Union left. Those are the four teams that beat Marietta a year ago.

“You expect to be 6-0, but when you’re finally here it’s a whole new feeling,” said senior left tackle Caleb Riggleman. “It’s kind of like a mountain top thing, every week is a little bit better as you keep on climbing.

“Great win. 63-21 is awesome, but there are a lot of things we can do a lot better. There’s always stuff to fix.”

Riggleman and his fellow offensive linemen helped the Pioneers rack up 505 yards of total offense.

Clark got things started with a 15-yard TD run before Fields’ 8-yard scoring strike to Robert Nelson made it 14-0 in the first quarter.

In the second quarter, Fields threw a 2-yard touchdown to tight end Bobby Cashaw and Clark rumbled into the end zone from 4 yards out to make it 28-7.

Waddle talked earlier in the week about the importance of winning the end of the half and the Pioneers did just that. Nelson outleaped three Wilmington defenders to haul in Fields’ deep shot from 37 yards out to score with no time left on the clock. MC took a 35-7 advantage into half time.

“I thought we started fast,” Waddle said.

“The play at the end of the half was big.”

In the third quarter, Fields connected with Maguire Morris on touchdown throws of 18 and 19 yards to stretch the lead to 49-14. Late in the fourth quarter, Justin Bell rushed for a 10-yard touchdown before backup quarterback Kyle McSweeney threw a 15-yard TD pass to Billy Frauens to give the Pioneers their highest point total of the season.

Wilmington’s scoring came on a pair of touchdown passes from Kyle Barrett to Luke Richardson (3 and 71 yards) and another to Zayne Hart (14 yards). Barrett finished 21 for 30 for 253 yards. He was intercepted once by Javi Zaragoza for the only turnover in the game.

Glenville State 33,

West Liberty 23

GLENVILLE — Trevor Hoosier returned a late fourth quarter fumble 32 yards for a touchdown to give West Liberty University its final points of the game here Saturday afternoon inside Morris Stadium, but it wasn’t nearly enough as Glenville State College posted a 33-23 homecoming victory.

Reigning Mountain East Conference Offensive Player of the Week Mario Pender might be up for that honor once again after his big day for the G-men (3-4, 3-3), who visit rival Fairmont State at 1 p.m. next Saturday.

Pender’s 60-yard jaunt to paydirt late in the first half put the hosts ahead for good and the ex-Florida State Seminole finished the afternoon with game-highs of 23 rushes for 228 yards. He also found the end zone on runs of 49 and 50 yards.

West Liberty (2-5, 2-5) led 3-0 with 1:33 left in the first after a 38-yard Owen Rozanc field goal. However, GSC answered with a 17-yard touchdown strike from Jaylen McNair to Gary Bacon and went ahead 7-3 after Justin Watts’ PAT.

WLU, losers of nine straight on the road, took its last lead with 4:33 left in the half on Brenton Colabella’s 1-yard TD run.

McNair, who finished 14 of 21 for 147 yards, also had a 17-yard TD pass to Javon Butler. Butler had five grabs for a game-high 77 receiving yards.

Keevin Gillard registered 2.5 sacks and Pioneer teammate JT Ngangum added two more as GSC won the total yards battle, 383-231. Also for the GSC defense, Samuel Thomas recovered a fumble as too did Daniel Robinson, who broke up four passes.

Charles Westbrook paced the Hilltopper rushing attack with 91 yards on 23 attempts.

Hoosier, a Williamstown High School graduate, finished the game with two fumble recoveries and six total tackles.

Marshall 42,

Old Dominion 20

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Tyler King rushed for a career-high 195 yards with two long fourth-quarter touchdown runs and Marshall pulled away from Old Dominion for a 42-20 victory on Saturday.

King ran for 116 yards in the final 3:05 of the game — scoring on runs of 65 and 46 yards — to help the Thundering Herd (4-2, 2-1 Conference USA) pad a late eight-point lead.

Marshall scored first — although it took until the second quarter — giving them 14 straight wins and 36 in 37 games when it opens the scoring. The Thundering Herd took a 14-0 lead on back-to-back 10-play drives with Anthony Anderson doing the damage first on a 22-yard TD run. Alex Thomson hit Tyre Brady for a 3-yard TD for the second score.

Anderson had 4-yard TD runs in the third and fourth quarters to push Marshall’s lead to 28-13.

Blake LaRussa hooked up with Kesean Strong for a 16-yard TD to pull the Monarchs (1-6, 0-4) within 28-20 with 5:01 left to play, but King settled matters with his two TD runs. LaRussa passed for 296 yards and two scores.

Old Dominion came in surrendering 525 yards and 38.7 points per game. Marshall finished with 501 yards of offense, including 319 on the ground.

Northern Illinois 24, Ohio 21

DEKALB, Ill. (AP) — Marcus Jones ran 2 yards for the go-ahead touchdown with 4:51 left and left tackle Max Scharping caught a pass for the 2-point conversion as Northern Illinois battled back from a 21-9 deficit after three quarters to earn a 24-21 Mid-America Conference victory over Ohio Saturday afternoon.

Nathan Rourke threw 56 yards to Isiah Cox and 11 yards to Connor Brown as time expired at the end of the third quarter to put the Bobcats up 21-9.

Marcus Childers drove Northern Illinois 77 yards in 12 plays to cut the deficit to 21-16 on a 10-yard quarterback draw with 4:16 left and Sutton Smith got the Huskies the ball with a strip sack of Rourke at midfield.

Childers moved Northern Illinois (4-3, 4-0) 53 yards in six plays to take the lead with 4:51 left.

Childers was 17 of 33 for 145 yards passing and carried 23 times for 169 on the ground.

Rourke led Ohio (3-3, 1-1) with 275 yards on 15-for-23 passing.

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