We took the opening kickoff and put together a 15 play touchdown drive that used up 6:40 of the first quarter. Our next score came in the second quarter on a one-yard run by Nick Hinojosa. The run capped a 5 play, 70 yard drive. The big play of the drive was 41 yard pass from Mike Bogard to Robert Seer. The score gave us a 14-0 lead, which we took into halftime.
Coming out of the half, our defense forced a three and out, and the offense launched a 13 play drive that used up another 6:32 of game time. Unfortunately we were only able to get a field goal out of the drive, but that would prove to be enough.
The defense came up huge the entire game. On Monmouth’s first drive of the game we stopped them twice for short gains on running plays. On third down Coach Martinez called the perfect blitz and senior Ryan Fletcher was able to get the big hit on their quarterback. He ended up coming out of the game after that play, and he never returned. Monmouth’s offense took a while to adjust to a new quarterback, and our defense kept bringing the pressure all game.
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| Marquis Bradley and Ryan Fletcher |
Monmouth eventually closed the gap to 17-15 late in the fourth quarter, and had the ball with a chance to win the game. The defense came up clutch again however, when Marquis Bradley forced a fumble with under five minutes, and on the next drive they stopped Monmouth on fourth down with less than one minute remaining.
This was a great victory for our program and for our players. All the hard work of the past few years has begun to pay off, but nobody is satisfied with our 2-0 start. We know that we have the potential to win every game left on our schedule, but we have the potential to lose them all as well. There are no guarantees for this team, so we’ll just keep working hard and try to make our own breaks!
