ALTON - The Marquette Catholic Explorers faced adversity early on.
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After two touchdowns were called back and two turnovers were committed, the Explorers found themselves trailing the Dupo Tigers 6-0 in the second quarter. But the game would turn a 180 within three plays.
Junior kicker, Jonah Fahnestock booted a 33-yard field goal to cut the deficit in half. On the ensuing kickoff, Fahnestock’s kick landed in no man’s land and then scooted beyond from Dupo returner for Brett Terry to fall on the ball at the six-yard line. Iggy McGee ran the ball in on the next play to give Marquette a 10-6 lead.
The Explorers held on to beat Dupo 24-21 in a Prairie State Conference game at Public School Stadium on a cold Saturday night in Alton.
“Kicking is apart of our game. We’re inside the 30-yard line, and we’re going to take a shot, and you can see Jonah had some room to do it,” Explorers head coach Darrell Angleton said. “We’ve got some talent and talent can win, but we have to tie up a lot of loose ends after this game. “As many mistakes as we made, [Dupo] made some mistakes, and we capitalized on most of them. That’s what you got to do when you’re off-key.”
The Marquette offense was a work in progress as Sophomore quarterback Logan Sternickle made his varsity debut because of junior Jake Hewitt being hampered with an injury.
On the opening series, Marquette fumbled at midfield, and Dupo returned the ball to the Explorers six-yard line. Two plays later, Malik Calhoun scored on a two-yard touchdown run to put the Tigers on the board first at 6-0.
After Marquette’s 10-point surge in the second quarter, the Explorers added another touchdown in the third quarter to take a 17-6 lead.
Dupo would respond with a drive that lasted over eight minutes, capped by a touchdown run by a five-yard touchdown run by Calhoun that pulled Dupo to within three at 17-14 with four minutes left. However, the Explorers answered with a one-yard touchdown run from Zach Smith to put the game away for good. Dupo scored their final points with no time remaining.
“We can generally move the ball inside when we need to,” Angleton said. “I’ve got a couple of running backs that can do the job. We came down our single-wing package and decided they wanted it, and so we drove it down.”
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