Game Leaders
Team Stats
Passing Yards
Rushing Yards
Turnovers
Time of Poss.
MARIETTA, Ohio — Bryce Agnew rushed for a career-high 252 yards as Marietta shutout Wilmington College, 34-0, Saturday (Oct. 15) on Homecoming for the Pioneers. Marietta improves to 3-3 overall and 2-3 in the Ohio Athletic Conference. Wilmington is 3-3 on the season and 2-3 in the OAC.
"Bryce is a workhorse. We've seen this from him before where he gets better as the game goes on and he wears the defense down," Marietta head coach Andy Waddle said. "And any time you put a zero on the board someone is doing something on that side of the ball. Coach Feltrop and the defensive staff did good job of taking away what Wilmington wanted to do."
Agnew carried the ball 26 times for 252 yards and four rushing touchdowns. Agnew scored Marietta's first four touchdowns on runs of 10, 30, 67, and 27 yards. The final Pioneers score was a 14-yard pass from Connor Vierstra to John Sierputowski.
Vierstra completed 14-of-27 passes for 193 yards. He was picked off once and tossed the one touchdown pass. Dawson Snyder had five catches for 84 yards, while Sierputoski had four catches for 79 yards and one touchdown.
Wilmington received the opening kickoff and drove the ball to the Marietta 14-yard line. The Quaker drive ended when Ty'reik Martin intercepted an Adam Dixon pass in the endzone.
Marietta responded with an eight-play, 80-yard drive that resulted in Agnew's first touchdown of the afternoon. Agnew carried the ball five times on the drive for a total of 69 yards, including the 10-yard touchdown run.
The Pioneers extended the lead to 14-0 in the second quarter. Marietta's defense forced Wilmington to punt out of its own endzone. Snyder returned the punt to the Quaker 30-yard line and then Agnew did the rest scoring on the first play of the drive.
Agnew opened the scoring in the second half when he broke free for a 67-yard touchdown run. The extra point was blocked, and Wilmington scooped up the kick and almost returned it for two points. Gabe Tingle preserved the shutout when he ran down the Quaker returner and made the tackle short of the endzone.
"Perhaps the biggest play of the game was Gabe running down the block on our PAT. Sometimes that stuff goes unnoticed, but that play kept the shutout," Waddle said. "We think he is going to be a special player in our program when his time gets called."
Marietta's defense squashed any hopes of a Quaker comeback with a pair of second half interceptions. Martin grabbed his second of the day and Brady Panucci had the third pick of the afternoon.
The Pioneers sacked Wilmington quarterbacks five times including a pair from All-American Drake Neuberger and 1.5 sacks by Kyle Folkert. Neuberger and Folkert each had 10 tackles in the game to lead the Pioneers.
Dixon completed 15-of-28 passes for 136 yards. Ace Taylor caught six passes for 72 yards and Itika Wynn Jr. has two catches for 52 yards.
Marietta plays at Heidelberg University next Saturday (Oct. 22) at 2 p.m.