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The Peacock Football team took the field in Bismarck, North Dakota today on a mission to get their fourth win of the season. The Maruaders of Mary had different ideas. The home team dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball all afternoon. The Peacocks traveled to the Bismarck Community Bowl with only 45 healthy players as injuries have really started taking a toll on the offensive and defensive ranks.
All afternoon it seemed that the Marauders were one step ahead. When Upper Iowa blitzed on defense, the Mary offense would call a screen pass to their running backs over the head of the oncoming rush or an inside handoff that kept Peacock rushers coming up empty-handed. When Upper Iowa chose to run their inside handoffs and sprint options, the Mary defense was ready and gang tackled D.J. Speed and Jay Lehman quickly. Mary scored a touchdown on 6 of their 10 possessions in the game, a phenomenal percentage. The Peacocks forced three punts and Mary controlled the ball on their last possession and ran the clock out. On the flip side, the Peacock offense only scored on three of their ten drives, which included two Derek VanHorn 35-yard field goals to open the Upper Iowa scoring and a Lehman to Hudgins pass and catch from the 4-yard line in the 3rd quarter. The highly-touted Peacock offense has had trouble balancing success of both the running and passing attack over the last couple weeks. D.J. Speed got the start at running back for injured T.C. Hicks and Jay Lehman took over as the quarterback for today’s game. The offense did move the ball through the air successfully today gaining 276 yards, but the ground game only netted 7 yards on 24 attempts. The Marauders found great success on the ground as they piled up 232 yards rushing (Justin Fleck 106 yards, 2 TD’s / Bayland Rippenkroeger 58 yards, 1 TD) against the Peacock defense. Back up quarterback, Paul Burgess (176 passing yards, 3 TD’s), made his first start of the year and led the Mary offense to a total of 408 yards. After the game Coach Mike Knoll had the following thoughts, “Today was a frustrating experience. We played against a good team, but I don’t know if they’re 29 points better. They did a good job on the ground against us today. We are very thin throughout the roster, but most teams are at this point in the season. All three levels of our defense from the line to the linebackers to the secondary executed poorly today. We didn’t play well today. In all my years, ballgames are decided on two stats; Turnover Margin and Possession Downs. If you don’t win these two categories, it’s going to be a long day, and I bet we didn’t win those two categories today.” Coach Knoll continued, “Our guys are learning the great lesson that you don’t show what you’re made of when you’re winning and everything is easy. You show what you’re made of when you have to rise up from defeat and persevere through the tough times. We have two games left and we need to get better and rally together for next week’s home game.” The Peacocks return to the friendly confines of Eischeid Stadium in Fayette next Saturday, November 4th. Upper Iowa will face the Wolves of Northern State University in their last home game of the season. Kickoff is scheduled for 12:00 p.m. Peacock Standouts Rushing: Speed, D.J. 11, 22 yards; Croker, Dwayne 1, 5 yards; Lehman, Jay 12, -20 yards Passing: Lehman, Jay 24-38, 276 yards, 1 INT, 1 TD Receiving: Croker, Dwayne 9, 98 yards; Hudgins, Ryan 8, 66 yards; McFarland,Aaron 3, 44 yards; Graves, Charles 2, 25 yards; Conrad, Allen 1, 27 yards; Hosch, Kyle 1, 16 yards Tackles (UA-A): Spier, Chris 4-3; St.Firmin, Richard 5-0; Jones, Calvin 4-1; Calamita, A. 3-2; Wilkins,Vernard 3-2; Titley, John 2-2; Hernandez, D. 2-1; Williams, D.W. 2-1; Conrad, Allen 2-0; Akins, Doug 2-0; Lynch, Alex 1-0; Hosch, Kyle 1-0; Johnson, Adam 1-0 |
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