Wildcats wear down Granite City in 31-7 opening win

The Marion Wildcats admittedly made their fair share of mistakes in Friday's season opening game. However, the Wildcats did several important things right, rolling to a 31-7 win over the visiting Granite City Warriors.

"We did a lot of things tonight I think teams do in the first week of the season," said Marion coach Kerry Martin. "But they are things that we can fix."

The Wildcats turned the ball over three times, but took advantage of give Granite City turnovers in the game. The first one led to a quick score for Marion.

Granite City started on its own 25, and Jay Riley sacked Warriors quarterback Perry Grimes for a 14-year loss. Two plays latter, Kaprix Sloan fumbled and Colin Soldner recovered at the Granite City 17.

It took Marion five plays to cover the 17 yards, with Toren Stanley punching the ball in from two yard out with 9:14 left for a 6-0 lead.

"That was a big deal," Martin said. "We were the favorite coming in and it was important for us to get off to a good start and kind of get them on our heels."

Instead, the Warriors responded with a 12-play, 78-yard drive to take the lead. Cody Spanberger scored on a 1-yard run with 3:52 left in the first quarter. Brian Nemsky's extra-point kick gave Granite City a 7-6 advantage.

The lead lasted just three minutes. Highlighted by a 46-yard pass from Brett Bradley to Riley, Marion went 69 yards on just plays, despite being penalized 15 yards in the drive. Shekeil Ivy powered his way for a 15-yard scoring run. Bradley connected with Herbert McMillan on the conversion and it was 14-7 with 52 seconds left in the first quarter.

Neither team scored in the second quarter, but both teams freely turned the ball over. Marcus Green recovered a Sloan fumble at the Wildcat 13. Two plays later, Cedric Neal coughed the ball up to Granite City's Brandon Yeager. On the next play, Stanley snagged Grimes' errant pass in the end zone and returned it to the Wildcat 24.

Marion then started marching downfield, but Bradley fumbled the ball at the Granite City 34. After a Warrior punt, a Bradley screen pass to Ivy netted 47 yards before Ivy fumbled the ball away at the Granite City six.

"We put the ball on the ground too many times," Martin said. "But we still had some big play potential."

Leading 14-7 at halftime, the Wildcats took charge in the third quarter. Troy Stuckey returned a short kick to the Granite City 48. Nine running plays later, Ivy's second touchdown made the score 21-7.

"I think our tempo was good tonight," Martin said. "We ran a lot of plays. I don't know how many total plays we ran, but we tried to wear them down by playing fast. I think that had a little affect tonight."

The Wildcats added two more scores in the fourth quarter. A Keegan McGee fumble recovery led to a 35-yard field goal by Taylor Ridgeway with 11:35 to go in the game.

Alex Long capped things off by recovering a fumbled snap, then scoring on the drive's only play from seven yards out with 4:24 left in the game.

Ivy finished the night as Marion's leading rusher. The junior had 100 yards on 20 carries. McMillan finished with 46 yards while Neal added 32 and Stanley 22. Bradley was 7-for-12 in his varsity debut for 128 yards. He didn't throw a touchdown pass but also didn't throw an interception.

"I have to comment on my quarterback," Martin said. "This was his first start as a varsity quarterback and statistics aside, he really made good decisions tonight. That was a huge key. He made good decisions. He was able to run the ball when he needed to, make the right reads in his progression and I thought he did a great job leading this football team."

Granite City's leading rusher was Sloan. The sophomore back had 152 yards on 28 carries. Spanberger finished with 57 yards for the Warriors, but Grimes was sacked three times for a net loss of 28 yards.

Marion hits the road next Friday for a long road trip at Highland.