By Chris Rossetti

CLARION – Justin Quiggle’s 59-yard touchdown run with 4:42 left in the third quarter helped St. Marys beats Clarion 14-7 Friday night at Clarion University’s Memorial Stadium.

With the game tied at seven, and neither team’s offense getting much going, St. Marys (2-2) called a misdirection run to Quiggle, who found a hole and out raced the Clarion defense to the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown.

“Justin’s a good running back,” St. Marys head coach Joe Schlimm said. “He is a breakaway threat. He had an opportunity to do something, and he took advantage of it. That was a really big part of the game.”

St. Marys’ defense made sure Quiggle score stood up when it stopped the Clarion offense at the Dutch 33-yard line on downs with just over five minutes to play. The Bobcats (2-2) actually had reached the St. Marys 27 and were facing second-and-9 when the Dutch defense dropped Danny Walters for a 3-yard loss and then Marcus Smerker for another 3-yard loss before Brandon Heeter’s fourth-down pass fell incomplete.

That series of plays summed up a frustrating night on offense for Clarion, which at times had some big plays (13 for five yards or more) but at others found itself going backward (27 of one yard or fewer including 10 incomplete passes and eight negative-yard plays).

“Our inconsistency on offense worries me a little bit,” Clarion head coach Judd Allan said. “I’m not sure why that is. I’m always an optimist, so I think we can get things rolling in the right way. Maybe it does take more than a few games to see how teams adjust and how the guys react to how we do things. But I’ll take the blame for the inconsistency. That’s my fault.”

It wasn’t like St. Marys’ offense was producing big yards against Clarion’s defense either, as the Dutch managed 241 yards for the game, 236 of them from Quiggle and Kevin Hoy. Quiggle ran 13 times for 114 yards and caught three passes for two yards, while Hoy had 29 carries for 120 yards and a 1-yard touchdown in the first quarter that started the scoring and looked like the Kevin Hoy of last year who rushed for over 1,500 yards.

“Kevin looked like Kevin tonight for the first time all year,” Schlimm said about his senior running back who had been slowed through the first three games with an ankle injury – he even missed the Week Two win over Clarion-Limestone. “That is what we really in our offense. We need a big bruiser. He played really, really well tonight.”

Clarion’s defense, which was led by 16 tackles from Ian Matson, 15 by Lewis Armstrong and 12 by Mitch Rhoades, set up the Bobcats lone touchdown of the game when Patrick Mehtra recovered a Brad Yetzer fumble at the St. Marys’ 17-yard line late in the first half. Yetzer actually fumbled the ball twice on the play recovering the first one off the shotgun snap only to re-fumble it and lose it moments later.

 “I like our defense,” Allan said. “I think our defense plays hard. We’ve bottled most teams up so far. I like how our guys hustle on defense.”

But even starting a drive at the 17, the Bobcat offense needed the help of a pass interference call on St. Marys in the end zone to score its lone touchdown, which came on an 11-yard Marcus Smerker run.

“I think on defense we had a really good plan coming in,” Schlimm said. “We had to stop what they do best, which we thought was there option game. I think we won the battle on the line of scrimmage. If you do that, I think most games you are going to have some success. We put our defense in a tough spot a number of times, and they responded very well all night with the exception of one drive.”

Clarion is back in action Thursday at Redbank Valley with St. Marys hosting Moniteau Friday.

ST. MARYS 14, CLARION 7

Score by Quarters

St. Marys 7 0 7 0 – 14

Clarion 0 7 0 0 – 7

            S         C

First Downs    14        8

Rushes-Yards  46-224 32-71

Passing Yards 17        99

Passing: Comp-Att-Int            4-10-0  8-18-1

Total Yards     241      170

Fumbles-Lost  3-1       3-2

Penalties-Yards           5-48     7-44

Punts-Avg.      6-32.8  6-33.2

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

Rushing – St. Marys: Kevin Hoy 29-120, Justin Quiggle 13-114, Kyle Schneider 1-3, Team 1-minus 1, Brian Merritt 1-minus 2, Brad Yetzer 1-minus 10. Clarion: Danny Walters 11-32, Kris Burkhart 11-20, Marcus Smerker 8-18, Brandon Heeter 1-2, Damien Slike 1-minus 1.

Passing – St. Marys: Yetzer 4-for-10, 17 yards. Clarion: Walters 6-for-8, 91 yards. Brandon Heeter 2-for-10, 8 yards, 1 interception.

Receiving – St. Marys: Quiggle 3-2, Jimmy Werner 1-15. Clarion: Camron Kirkland 2-15, Kris Burkhart 2-9, Bryce Straffin 1-37, Mitch Rhoades 1-27, Mike Smith 1-7, Marcus Smerker 1-4.

Interceptions: St. Marys: Quiggle.