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BETHALTO – Civic Memorial’s junior quarterback Noah Turbyfill had a big chance when he got the start for the Eagles in their opening-night game against Marquette Catholic.
And Turbyfill made the most of the opportunity.
Turbyfill ran for a touchdown and threw for another in the first half as he led the Eagles to a 28-13 win over the Explorers at CM’s Hauser Field Friday night.
The win put CM at 1-0 for the season; Marquette fell to 0-1 to begin the year.
POST-GAME VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH CM's MIKE PARMENTIER:
“It was a great football game; we got up 20-0, but I think our kids let up off the pedal and Marquette went and got after it,” said Eagle coach Mike Parmentier. “Their quarterback, Kaleb Ware, is an outstanding ballplayer; he made a difference in the second half – he got it to 20-13 and the (CM) offense responded with a good power drive and ended up with a two-point conversion (after a 3-yard TD run from Nick Walker that clinched the game for CM).
“I thought we were mentally tougher in this first game; we had to come back and bounce back and the kids did that – just an overall good first win for a young football team.”
Turbyfill, Parmentier thought, did a good job for the Eagles. “I thought Noah did a great job,” Parmentier said. “We kind of turned him loose; we knew we weren’t going to win the football game just by running the football at Marquette so we tried to run some play-action a little bit and he was dialed in tonight – I thought he did a great job.”
The win put CM at 1-0 for the season; Marquette fell to 0-1 to begin the year.
POST-GAME VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH MARQUETTE'S DARRELL ANGLETON:
“We’re both young,” said Explorer coach Darrell Angleton about both teams on the night. “The team that made the least amount of errors was going to win the ball game; I got them at about plus-nine, so you know, we made too many mistakes. There’s a lot of good things to take away, but we’ve got to clean up the mistakes.”
There were moments when Marquette’s youth was showing, Angleton thought. “You don’t go from having a little bit of a pass rush to all of a sudden being Superman; that’s with experience,” Angleton said. “When you’ve got a fol of sophomores playing – we’ve got a couple of freshmen out there – they’ve got to learn. Unfortunately, we’re making them learn here (on the field) instead of on Mondays, and that’s OK.
“In the physicality of it, they were OK; a couple of times, I would have liked better tackling on the runs – since we’re short-handed, we don’t hit as much in practice. You don’t want to have a practice injury, but I think a lot of it is getting that game-time experience – even from JV, the speed out here is much quicker, not that they’re faster, but the game comes at you much quicker. I think we can solve some of those problems, but it’s going to take a few games to figure it out.”
CM didn’t take long to get their first touchdown of the game, taking the opening kickoff and quickly driving downfield, Alex Reams catching a 16-yard touchdown pass from Turbyfill with just 3:06 gone in the opening quarter to put the Eagles up 7-0 after Chandler Powell’s conversion before Turbyfill expanded the lead to 14-0 on a 5-yard touchdown sprint with 6:07 left in the first half.
The lead then went to 20-0 when Briley Christeson went in from a yard; Marquette answered when Kaleb Ware took a snap and found an opening to go in from 18 yards out with 1:51 left in the third period to cut the lead to 20-7 after Jonah Fahenstock’s convert.
The Explorers then made a game of it early in the final quarter after forcing a three-and-out on the ensuing CM possession when Ware found De’Von Barry from 36 yards out to cut the lead to 20-13 with 11:47 left in regulation time; the Eagles answered with a drive that ended when Walker got the call and pushed it in from three yards out with 7:15 left; Walker then ran in a two-point conversion to push the lead to 28-13.
Marquette was stymied on their next possession before they got the ball for one final chance in the late going, but a Ware pass was picked off; all the Eagles had to do was run out the clock, which they did successfully.
CM has another big test next Friday when they face backyard rival East Alton-Wood River at 7 p.m. at EAWR’s Memorial Stadium, while Marquette hosts Breese Mater Dei at 7 p.m. next Friday at Public School Stadium.
