Robbins, turnovers lead Marathon past Tigers

MARATHON — Marathon took advantage of Stratford’s errors and the legs of senior Alex Robbins to remain undefeated Friday.

Robbins scored three touchdowns — two set up by miscues by Stratford’s special teams — and Noah Dirks returned an interception 44 yards for another score in Marathon’s 33-14 win in a Marawood Conference showdown.

Robbins rushed for 152 yards — scoring on runs of 39 and 49 yards in the fourth quarter as the Raiders pulled away late.

“A fellow teacher said to me (this week), ‘Hey, do you hear that? It’s opportunity knocking. Tell your guys to go get it.’ I think that is what they did tonight,” Marathon coach Todd Stoffel said. “They took advantage of opportunities by playing hard and getting after it.”

Marathon is 3-0 for the second time in three years while Stratford, ranked No. 10 in the Small Division of the Associated Press state poll this week, suffered its first loss.

“We set our goals high at the beginning of the season, and if we’re going to get to where we need to be, we’re going to have to keep rolling like this,” said Robbins, who also scored on a 3-yard run in the second quarter. “3-0, we’re right on track where we want to be.”

The Raiders took control of the game with three touchdowns in a span of 1 minute, 49 seconds after Stratford took an early 6-0 lead.

Robbins’ 39-yard touchdown came after Strratford muffed a punt at midfield with the Raiders leading 20-14 with just under four minutes left in the game.

Marathon’s Justin Natzke recovered the loose ball and two plays later Robbins burst up the middle for the score. He added his final touchdown after the Raiders stopped Stratford on downs at midfield with roughly 90 seconds left.

Stratford took advantage of a Marathon fumble at the Raiders’ 25 in the second quarter to take a short-lived 6-0 lead on Taylor Krall’s 2-yard run.

Robbins went 57 yards to the Stratford 8 on the first play of Marathon’s ensuing possession, helped in part as a Tigers defensive back fell down on the play. Two plays later Marathon quarterback Kellen Vetter connected with Nathan Stoffel  in the back of the end zone to give Marathon the lead.

“They were stopping us at the beginning (in the running game), but we just had to find something that worked,” Robbins said. “Once we found it, we stuck with it.”

Dirks cut in front of a Stratford receiver on a third-and-10 play on the Tigers’ following possession and returned the ball untouched down the left sideline for a score.

Stratford could not muster a first down on the next possession and the snap on the punt attempt was dropped, giving Marathon the ball at the Tigers’ 3.

Robbins went around left end on the next play to give Marathon a 20-6 lead at the break.

“That’s the name of high school football. (Marathon) won the turnover ratio and that turned out to the majority of the reason why they had more points on the scoreboard,” Stratford coach Jason Tubbs said. “I thought at times that we outplayed them, but that’s what happens in high school. You throw a pick six, fumble the ball on the 4-yard line and then you fumble a punt return when you’ve got the chance to go down and take the lead. Those things can’t happen by our players.”

Stratford’s Wyatt Ehrike returned the second half kickoff beyond midfield and Krall scored on a 9-yard run eight plays later.

Krall finished with 73 yards rushing, nearly half of what he had averaged in the first two games.

“We just didn’t want to give up the big play to them. We knew they would be able to move it a little bit (in the running game),” Stoffel said. “The defense played great tonight and just kept making plays. (Stratford) is a physical team, and we just kept fighting.”

Stratford

0

6

8

0

—

14

Marathon

0

20

0

13

—

33

Second quarter

S-Taylor Krall 2 run (run fail), 5:01.

M-Nathan Stoffel 4 pass from Kellen Vetter (Ryan Gassner pass from Vetter), 4:05.

M-Dirks 44 INT return (pass fail), 3:20.

M-Alex Robbins 3 run (pass fail), 2:16

Third quarter

S-Krall 9 run (Krall run), 8:07

Fourth quarter

M-Robbins 39 run (run fail), 3:43.

M-Robbins 49 run (Karter Underwood), 1:38.

Tim Johnson can be reached at 715-845-0731 or at twjohnson@gannett.com. Find him on Twitter@timmyjo11