Traverse City, MI- August 25th, 2017- It was a tough night for the Marquette Redmen football team. They had a very tough task in front of them for their season opener. Traverse City St. Francis Gladiators are a perennial power and coming off an 11-1 campaign in 2016.
The Redmen looked up to the task in the first portion of this game. Marquette kept things close for a long time in this one. Both teams defenses looked like All-Staters as neither team could find any points until late in the second quarter. Traverse City would grab the first lead of the game with a 1 yard touchdown run and complete the extra point to make it 7-0. The Redmen offense would struggle to get much going in the first half. They would be able to get some good yards on the ground but couldn’t get any points in the first half and trailed 7-0.
With the half time score only at 7-0, you could not have asked for a much better start for Marquette. Coming into the game and knowing how good of a team the Gladiators are it was good to keep things close. But Traverse City St. Francis would dominate the third quarter and add a couple of touchdowns to make this a 21-0 game. Give credit to the Redmen they would never quit, that is especially nice to see considering they are so young. Marquette would get a 25 yard touchdown, a pass from Brendan Kaski to Ethan Martysz. It would come with five minutes left in the game. On the following kick off the Redmen would recover their onside kick to give themselves some more hope but just didn’t have enough time on the clock.
It really was a great game and a great test for the Marquette Redmen. It was a tough loss but there was a lot of great things to take out of this game. Marquette has a young team and faced a really tough opponent in Traverse City St. Francis. I know the Redmen are looking to their next game at home against Traverse City Central on September 1st at 7:00 PM. Tune into Fox Sports Marquette 105.1 and 99.9 for the next game or stream us live!
Check out the full Marquette Redmen football season schedule on the official Marquette Sports Page.
KEY STATS: Andrew Gale had a big game on the ground with 145 yards rushing
LISTEN LIVE – MARQUETTE REDMEN FALL TO TRAVERSE CITY ST. FRANCIS 21-7
