South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

Football Tigers prevail over Marquette 27-21

Oakville to host Parkway North Friday night

After a hard-fought battle, the Oakville Senior High School varsity football team snatched a come-from-behind win on the road Friday night over the Marquette Mustangs.

Despite giving up some unnecessary yards due to several penalties, the Tigers prevailed 27-21.

Oakville head Coach Arlee Conners told the Call he was pleased with the resilience his squad showed.

“It was a tough battle … They (the Mustangs) scored early and we had to find a way to come back and thought we had a good battle going,” he said. “I thought our guys showed a lot of character in never quitting.

“Next week, I think we just have to clean up some things … I think it was kind of a sloppy game at the very beginning. The guys were a little jittery, a little nervous and took some penalties.”

Marquette struck first with a touchdown in the opening quarter, but the Tigers got back into it on both sides of the ball. Oakville did not allow any points for the remainder of the half and scored in the second quarter. Heading into halftime, the Tigers were up 8-7.

Both teams scored in the third quarter to knot things up going into the fourth quarter. However, Oakville scored twice and Marquette only once as the Tigers propelled themselves to their season-opening victory.

Quarterback Andy Oliver threw for four touchdowns in the opener with no interceptions. In fact, the Tigers had no turnovers at all, something that hurt them quite a bit last season.

“I felt good about how we protected the ball tonight,” Conners said. “We had a game with zero turnovers. That was very good to see. Now we just have to clean up our penalties.

“I mean it was the first game, so the guys were probably a little trigger happy, but we don’t need that many penalties.”

Fans also should be optimistic about the depth that Oakville displayed in the contest. Conners believes that’s one factor that could continue to bring success to the Tigers throughout the season.

“I thought we used a lot of different people,” he said. “I thought we had a lot of different guys contribute both on offense and on defense and that was huge.

“I think there’s no one guy on our team that you can really single out, or isolate. Ee had a lot of different guys on our team making plays for us and that’s going to be big for us all through the year.”

The Tigers will try to keep their positive momentum rolling when they host Parkway North at 7 p.m. Friday.

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