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Marietta College rolls to 50-0 win over Otterbein

By Jordan Holland 6 min read

MARIETTA -- Isaiah McCartney could see daylight.

Marietta College's junior nose guard grabbed the first interception of his college career and sprinted along the sideline. There were no Otterbein players between him and the goal line, but unfortunately for McCartney, the 295-pounder was chased down and tackled shy of the end zone.

That was about the only thing that went wrong for McCartney and the Pioneer defense Saturday as they rolled to a 50-0 win at Don Drumm Stadium.

"The stunt we ran, I was supposed to cross over the center's face," McCartney said. "Chance (Knight) came into the opposite A gap so I looped to the edge and kind of fixed the front to make sure (the quarterback) didn't scramble. He threw it and I actually went to just swat it down, but I looked down and it was like, 'Oh, there's a football in my hands.'"

McCartney took off down the sideline and had teammates to each side of him celebrating, but they didn't see Otterbein's Declan Jewitt sprinting from behind.

"For a second (I thought I was scoring), but then I realized I'm a 300-pound nose guard," laughed McCartney, who also had a sack in the game. "I was moving for about 15 yards, but that was about it."

Marietta head coach Andy Waddle had a good view of the play.

"I saw the guy tracking him down and I saw the guys running beside him," said Waddle, whose Pioneers improved to 2-1. "I'm just desperately thinking, 'There's nobody in front of him. You guys got to look backwards. (McCartney) doesn't run a 4.5, 40. Those numbers may be reversed for his 40. Look back.' So there's some coaching moments there."

When Waddle watches this game back on film, there's going to be a lot of positives both offensively and defensively.

Bryce Agnew carried 19 times for 137 yards and two touchdowns, while Connor Vierstra completed 13 of 22 passes for 204 yards and a touchdown and also ran for two scores.

"Connor I thought threw the ball well," Waddle said. "Bryce popped a couple runs. We want to be able to control the line scrimmage a little better than we are right now. We were able to be efficient throwing the ball. We put 50 points on the board, so got to be pretty pleased with offensive unit today."

Defensively, the Pioneers surrendered 310 yards of total offense to the Cardinals (0-4) but never allowed them to cross to the goal line.

"They moved the ball a little bit there," Waddle said. "Some guys got out of gaps, a couple guys broke down in coverages, but for the most part we played really fundamentally sound defense. Our D-line is able to pressure the quarterback and limit people in the run game. When you can kind of be good on the line of scrimmage I think it makes football easier. We're able to do that on defense right now. It's going to get more challenging as we go and we're going to play some good teams these next couple weeks, but they've played fairly good so far."

McCartney added, "I would have to say, we're the best defense in the country. … We play with a lot of intensity, a lot of grit. We keep our nose down. No matter what happens in a game, we never really give up on plays. It's pretty hard for quarterbacks and offenses to stay together when there's 11 hats on the ball every single play. I feel good about it."

Marietta's defense showed up immediately, forcing a three-and-out on Otterbein's first possession of the game.

On Otterbein's second drive, Jewitt carried the ball but was stripped by Mahleek Melton. Brady Panucci recovered it at the Otterbein 15, setting up Vierstra's 15-yard touchdown run to give MC an early 6-0 lead.

Later, Vierstra drew Otterbein offsides and took advantage of the free play by completing a 52-yard pass to Jay Melchiori. Three players later, Vierstra rushed for his second TD of the game from 7 yards out to make it 13-0.

Toward the end of the first quarter, Marietta's Harley Hopkins sacked Otterbein QB Eason Hardouin for a loss of 12 yards on third down. That set up MC with good field position and led to a 40-yard field goal by Matthew Gossett, making it 16-0.

The Pioneers scored again in the second quarter on Agnew's 2-yard touchdown run. Agnew had runs of 7 and 15 yards on the drive leading up to the scoring play.

Marietta added another touchdown 18 seconds before halftime when Dawson Snyder took a screen pass from Vierstra 34 yards to the house. The Pios took a 29-0 lead into halftime.

The second half was more of the same, as the Pioneers picked up right where they left off with a 33-yard touchdown run by Agnew on the first drive of the third quarter. Snyder had a 23-yard carry to set up the score, which made it 36-0.

Vante' Hodges made it 43-0 when he ran for a 26-yard touchdown with 11:05 left in the game.

A pair of Washington County products produced turnovers for the Pioneers. Frontier graduate Tanner Bills had an interception while Waterford grad Holden Dailey had a strip sack.

Former Warren Warrior Evan Gandee caught 10-yard pass from Logyn Ratliff on third-and-9 to set up Zion Jackson-Wilborn's 1-yard TD run with 4:22 remaining to make it 50-0.

In what proved to be a fitting end to the game, Marietta's second team defense came up with a goal-line stand as time expired to preserve the shutout. That sequence fired up the Marietta sideline.

"It doesn't matter who you are, what year you're in, everybody's going to step up and do their part," McCartney said. "It's come to the point where even guys that are fourth and fifth team, jayvees, whatever you want to call them, if we need them to go in, we're not putting them in just to fill in a spot. We're putting them in because we can count on them to go in and do their job. I love watching them play."

Waddle added, "What I don't want to do is play for stats by keeping our first team defense in there. We rotated guys out and the guys that were in the game at the time did a hell of a job of rising up and getting a stop. Certainly proud of them for that."

The Pioneers hit the road for the first time next week when they visit Baldwin Wallace.

"We're coming for everybody," McCartney said. "We're hoping for a good season. This is, personally, the best I feel that we've been in a long time."

Contact Jordan Holland at jholland@mariettatimes.com.

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