Glasgow, Marmion handle St. Edward
Have fun trying to stop Marmion Academy’s Jordan Glasgow on the first play from scrimmage.
That was the recurring theme throughout for the Cadets, as Glasgow, a 6-foot, 190-pound sophomore managed 2 scores on first plays alone Friday, which for the most part gave Marmion Academy a 49-16 Suburban Christian Blue Division win over St. Edward at Greg True Field in Elgin for the Cadets’ 11th win over the Green Wave (1-2, 0-1) in 14 meetings.
Glasgow finished with 3 touchdowns and 153 yards running on 9 carries. He scored on runs of 2, 61 and 67 yards and just missed an 80-yard kickoff return for touchdown by a yard in the third quarter, when he was tackled by St. Edward kicker Joe French.
“I was just mad I had it in my right hand so I couldn’t stiff arm him,” Glasgow said. “I’ve gotten a lot grief that it was a kicker but it was real good blocking, I didn’t get touched until the kicker.”
A fantastic job by the offensive line was also another key for the Cadets (1-2, 1-0). Provided by Peter Shares, Kevin Lin, Andy Matthews, Oscar Garza, and Joe Talbot, Glasgow had open room to run all day.
“There was a wide-open hole, and a guy came from the side, I thought I was going to get tackled actually, I just popped-out and everything was wide open so I just started running,” Glasgow said of his first touchdown run.
While that image was stuck on repeat for most of the game, the key sequence was a stretch from the 3:54 mark in the first quarter after Glasgow’s 61-yard score until the 10:33 mark of the second quarter, when Marmion quarterback Charlie Faunce found Jake Ruddy for a 31-yard touchdown pass, resulting in a 21-0 score.
It all began during St. Edward’s second drive with a shanked punt that netted only 5 yards on the Marmion 39. On the next play from scrimmage, Glasgow broke free for 61 yards. The immediate Green Wave series resulted in an interception by Jude and Glasgow scored from 2 yards out 4 plays later. A St. Edward fumble on the first play of the next drive set up a 31-yard pass from Faunce to Ruddy and the rout was on. Ruddy (3 catches, 66 yards, 2 TDs) hauled in an 11-yard pass from quarterback Brock Krueger with 5:45 left in the half and the Cadets were up 28-0 in almost a blink of an eye.
“Every time you play St. Ed’s, they hang around, they’re going to be a menace,” Cadets coach Dan Thorpe said. “We wanted to get the spirit out of them early and you got to take advantage of turnovers early.”
Coming off losses to Fenwick and Jacobs, Marmion needed the win. But its 0-2 record was deceiving. St. Edward’s playoff path would have had better focus at 2-1 but costly turnovers put the Green Wave in a hole they couldn’t climb out of.
“I think it was still 0-0 at the time,” St. Edward coach Mike Rolando said just prior to the shanked punt. “We were thinking it was fourth-and-6, maybe, we could have gone for it at that point. Tighe (Koehring) can actually boot the ball pretty well and they weren’t rushing. Not sure what happened on that but it was pretty discouraging.”
St. Edward didn’t want to die easily. Just before halftime, sophomore QB Bryan O’Neill hooked up with Andrew Yarwood for a 3-yard pass, as O’Neill sold a great pitch fake and found Yarwood inside the goal line. Both would team-up again on a 5-yard score in the third after Glasgow’s 67-yard touchdown score on the half’s very first play.
“Things just didn’t go our way,” Yarwood said, who caught 5 passes for 73 yards. “They had a couple big plays.”
Marmion ran only 22 plays on offense for a total of 314 total yards. The Cadets outgained the Wave 314-265 on just 11 first downs and rushed for 248 yards. Erik Fitzgerald also rushed for a touchdown for Marmion, totaling 63 yards on 6 carries. Tighe Koehring rushed 21 times for 76 yards and O’Neill was 5-for-7 for 71 yards passing for the Green Wave.