Aurora Christian’s varied attack stumps tiring Marquette

OTTAWA – The axiom from U.S. Army General George S. Patton that states “fatigue makes cowards of us all” certainly did not apply to the Marquette football team Friday night.

The Crusaders, although as tired and cramped as they could be throughout their warm, muggy opening night at Gould Stadium, remained feisty and battled to the close, but ultimately succumbed to a diverse Aurora Christian attack in a 24-19 loss.

MA quarterback Anthony Couch connected with tight end Keaton Davis for touchdowns of 34 and 32 yards, and the Baker boys – junior Marcus and freshman Connor – teamed up for a ground score. However, the Eagles’ passing attack in the first half and its rushing in the second paired with the Cru’s momentum-stealing cramping conspired to leave the home team one TD short.

Marquette managed 281 yards of offense, as Grant Dose carried 14 times for 49 yards and Payton Gutierrez 10 times for 45. Couch went 6 of 12 throwing the ball for 107 yards and two TDs, but it was no match for the Eagles’ air attack.

AC quarterback Asa Johnson finished the day completing 17 of 25 passes for 212 yards, linking up with Jonan Miceli 10 times for 152 yards for almost half of the Eagles’ 309 yards of total offense.

“We hadn’t been bothered by cramps for a couple years now, but they were back tonight,” Marquette coach Tom Jobst said. “Aurora Christian’s a good team, and good teams execute, but I think our kids hung in there well, didn’t give up and had some nice plays also. I’m proud of them. It’s the first game of the year, and mistakes happen.

“My biggest takeaway from this was that we played hard, we executed fairly well, and, though we have some things we can fix, we gave ourselves a good foundation to build on.”

Johnson ran the visitors’ hurry-up offense to perfection in the first half, leading them to a 38-yard field goal by Zach Zappia in the opening quarter and a 19-yard TD pass to Miceli in the second for a 10-0 Eagles edge.

But the Crusaders were resilient. In the second quarter they ground out a 12-play drive that paid off with the first Couch-to-Davis scoring connection, Sam Mitre adding the PAT to make it 10-7.

Then in the third quarter, the Bakers came through with Connor breaking a run up the middle for 40 yards and Marcus taking it in the last 3 yards a play later to give Marquette a 13-10 edge.

Aurora Christian showed some guts of its own by bouncing back with a 66-yard drive capped by a Johnson-to-Nolan Robertson 5-yard scoring aerial, putting the Eagles on top for good.

However, the backbreaker for the Cru came early in the final quarter. AC’s Chris Fielding, who to that point had just 33 yards on 10 carries, took a sweep up the left sideline for the clinching 63-yard touchdown.

True to form, MA came back and got the second TD hook-up for Davis and Couch with only 2:32 left, but the conversion try failed, and the onside kick went out of bounds, sealing the Eagles’ win.

“We knew fatigue was going to be a big factor in this game tonight,” AC coach Dave Beebe said. “We practice on turf all summer, and we know going into a game like this on grass, it’s a much heavier field. That’s not an excuse. It’s a reality. It makes you more tired when the air is thick like this, so I give our kids credit. Marquette took the lead in the third quarter – that’s a much improved team and with all the heart they showed – but our kids took it back and kept it.

“We made some mistakes offensively and defensively, and we can clean those up, but the reality is also it’s a win, and you don’t care how. It was not pretty, but it’s a win.”