With a Marceline firetruck’s lights and sirens announcing their arrival, the 55 players on the Tigers football team looked to be a formidable foe. This time, looks were not deceiving as the Fayette Falcons suffered a 37-0 loss Friday night. 

The Tiger faithful, along with the players, held a moment of silence prior to the game to honor members of the Falcon family who are ill and those who have suffered loss during the recent past. After that moment, the Tigers released orange balloons as part of the tribute.

But then, there was football. At the end of the first quarter, the game was still tight, with Fayette trailing only by seven points.

Even at the end of the half, Fayette was holding its own and looked as if they might be able to stay in the game. Coming out of the locker room only down 14-0 looked promising considering Fayette’s ability to almost score at will in the prior game against Slater. But it was not to be as Marceline turned things around to win the game 37-0.

“We had a lot of self-inflicted things that seemed to set us back,” said Fayette coach Mike Thompson. “We knew we were going to have to drive the ball against these guys. They run so well to the ball, their effort and discipline is so high, we knew we were going to have to sustain drives and that’s difficult. It’s hard for everybody at every level and at some point, we were making key mistakes.”

Although six penalties for 43 does not sound like much in the grand scheme of things, almost all of Fayette’s penalties came at times when they became very costly. That, along with the mistakes, made for a very long second half. “Whether it was leaving a free run blitzer completely unblocked, or just missing the block out of confusion, or a penalty, or turning the ball over, you just can’t do that and win football games,” Thompson said.

“We were in a tough enough place mentally as it was, but when you’re not scoring it makes it tougher mentally. That just makes it hard to keep that energy and keep that emotion and fire that you need to play the game.”

Junior quarterback Ben Wells was pressured all night long and was sacked three times. He also had to pull the ball down and rush seven times for 51 yards. Wells attempted 22 passes and completed seven for 94 yards. The most telling stat, however, was probably his three interceptions that resulted from the heavy pressure put on him by the Marceline defense.

Senior running back Garren Vroman carried the ball 20 times for 102 yards, an average of 5.1 yards per carry. That is well below his season average of 9.7 yards per carry. Vroman also caught two passes for 25 yards. Junior Chase Allen-Jackman carried the ball three times for four yards while classmate DJ Moore rushed two times for 12 yards. Allen-Jackman also hauled in three wells passes for 56 yards. Senior Logan Wiswall caught two for 13.

Moore turned up the heat on defense, with eight tackles and five assists while Wiswall collected seven solo tackles.

Seniors Avery Powell, Chris Brown, and Tyler Bartholomew each had six tackles with four of Brown’s being for a loss.

Freshman Micah Estes recorded three tackles while seniors Dalton Collins and Cale Hudson along with junior Malakai Graves each contributed two. Allen-Jackman added one.

Fayette finally returns home on Friday with a 7 p.m. start against conference rival Westran. The Hornets are coming off a 44-14 loss to Harrisburg which dropped them out of the Class 1 Top Ten.