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Redmen PAT run beats Esky in O.T.

MARQUETTE — Marquette head coach Dave L’Huillier had an important question on his mind Friday night at the end of his team’s game with rival Escanaba.

Do we kick it or go for two?

The Redmen had just pulled within a point of rival Escanaba with a touchdown in overtime and the usual thought would be to kick the extra point and tie things up.

Instead, L’Huillier and the Redmen gambled and went for the 2-point conversion and the win. It paid off as Robert Apple plunged into the end zone to give Marquette a 36-35 victory.

“We were discussing plays that we wanted to get in overtime,” L’Huillier said. “We wanted to start with a down-G-left and then we debated to come back with the option right, because it worked so well earlier, or go with a quick pitch on the second play.

“But we scored on the first play and we were like ‘We might as well go for it right now.’ We were debating back and forth and Coach ‘I’ (Jim Iwanicki) said ‘Go for it’ so I went with it. We made the right call and the right time and the kids did a great job of making the play.”

Marquette had to battle adversity before that. The Eskymos rallied from a 21-point deficit to tie the game at 28-28 and force overtime. Escanaba then scored on its first possession on a fourth-down TD pass from Craig Kamin to Joshua Bruntjens, so now the Redmen had their backs against the wall.

However, Marquette wasn’t deterred and it literally kept charging forward as Brady Wright trotted in on its first play from scrimmage to set the stage for the exciting conclusion.

“I was so proud of them for how they finished,” L’Huillier said. “They could’ve hung their heads and said ‘We gave this game away and we had it won.’ But they dug deep to find a way to get a score and then made the biggest play of the game to get the 2-point conversion.”

For the Eskymos, it was a heartbreaking ending as they came together in the second half to pull off an impressive comeback, but ultimately came up short.

“The last session they (the Redmen) had the ball, they pretty much did what they did all night,” Esky head coach Dave Howes said.

“They wore us down a little bit and had a great play called. They went for two and we had the guys in the right spot, but we had a little slippage and a kid fell down. I give Dave (L’Huillier) credit for going for two, that’s a huge call.

“Credit to our kids for coming back in the second half like we have all year. We just never gave up and it could’ve gone either way. What a great football game.”

Marquette got on the board first late in the first quarter on a short 2-yard run by Wright and then padded its lead to 14-0 on a 59-yard touchdown pass from Brendan Kaski to Ethan Martysz.

Esky bounced back, though, pulling within seven on a 25-yard run by Isaac Cooper, but Marquette held a 14-point lead at the half thanks to a 10-yard touchdown run by Apple.

The Redmen kept rolling in the second half with a 3-yard TD by Kaski with 4:34 left in the third.

Despite the big deficit, the Eskymos didn’t give up. They chipped away with a scoring pass from Craig Kamin to Benjamin Willis and then Kamin tied the game on back-to-back long touchdown runs to force the contest into an extra session.

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