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No. 19 Cardinals pull away, beat Michigan Tech 35-13 | News, Sports, Jobs – Daily Mining Gazette

Michigan Tech defensive lineman Austin Schlicht pursues Saginaw Valley State quarterback Isaiah Malcome during a game Saturday at Kearly Stadium in Houghton. (David Archambeau/For the Gazette)

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HOUGHTON — Michigan Tech’s offense sputtered against No. 19 Saginaw Valley State in a 35-13 loss Saturday.

The Huskies (1-3) managed just nine first downs and 176 yards of offense.

The Cardinals (4-0), meanwhile, gained 413 yards of offense and 17 first downs.

When the Huskies’ offense got things in gear, it was productive. But that was for just a couple series.

The 22-point differential was the largest winning margin for either team going back to 2010. The previous largest scoring margin in that span was when the Cardinals won 55-35 in 2013. Both teams entered the game evenly split since 2015, with just an eight-point scoring differential (115-107) in favor of the Cardinals across the previous six games.

Tech capped a five-play, 71-yard drive on a 3-yard rush by junior running back Will Marano. Drew Wyble’s extra point failed. The Huskies’ next drive went 48 yards on six plays, ending with a 30-yard pass from sophomore wide receiver Ethan Champney to sophomore wide receiver Brandon Michalak.

“I thought they did a really nice job of moving the football and finishing off a couple of drives that they needed to,” Michigan Tech head coach Steve Olson said. “And then after that it was kind of just a normal football game from there.”

Michalak’s touchdown gave Tech the lead for 12 seconds.

Enter Isaiah Malcome, the Cardinals’ senior running back transfer from Div. I Penn, a member of the Ivy League Conference. After Tech took the lead on Michalak’s score, Malcome turned the corner and up the left sideline on the Cardinals’ first play from the line of scrimmage for a 75-yard score. He added another score about six minutes later on a 7-yard run to make it 21-13.

Cardinals quarterback Andrew Brito scored on a 1-yard keeper in the third quarter. Redshirt freshman wide receiver Arron Folkes caught a 13-yard pass from Brito with four minutes remaining in the third.

Saginaw Valley State scored first on a play extended by Brito. He narrowly escaped a collapsing pocket and sack to flick a pass to Derrick Hinton Jr., who then ran it 20 yards for the game’s first score.

Malcome ran for 145 yards on 20 carries and two touchdowns. He averaged 7.2 yards per carry.

“They got a great running back that made us miss some tackles and stuff like that,” Olson said of Malcome. “But we got some young guys that we need to be better in terms of our reads. And then when we got them off schedule we had a chance. There was too many times with this quarterback as elusive as he is, we said we need to control him in the pocket. He was able to get outside our pocket. We got to do a better job of keeping contain when we get into a situation.

“So there were mistakes that were made out there. And there was too many mistakes. That’s something we got to clean up.”

Tech’s leading rusher, Marano, ran 35 yards on 15 carries – an average of 2.3 yards per carry.

The Huskies rushing attack was stifled all day. Tech rushed 28 times for 47 yards.

Huskies quarterback Will Ark completed 11 of 20 passes for 99 yards. He was sacked twice and threw an interception.

Brito was 16 of 20 for 208 yards and two touchdowns.

Michigan Tech was led defensively by Marc Sippel’s 11 tackles, including nine solo. He had two tackles for loss.

The Huskies were 0 for 10 on third-down conversions, 0 of 1 on fourth down, and 1 of 2 in the red zone. Saginaw Valley State was 7 of 15 on third-down conversions, 1 of 1 on fourth down, and 4 of 4 in the red zone.

“We got to stay on blocks,” Olson said of adjustments moving forward. “And that’s going to give us the opportunity to set up more stuff again, offensively from that standpoint, and there are some plays that we made today that were good. But we got to work on all those types of things.”

Up next

The Huskies visit Davenport at noon Saturday in Grand Rapids.

The Cardinals play at Grand Valley State on Saturday.

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Source: https://www.mininggazette.com/sports/local-sports/2022/09/no-19-cardinals-pull-away-beat-michigan-tech-35-13/

Author: News tech