MARSHALL, MI (WTVB) – In week two of the high school football season, Coldwater was the only county team to win last night as Quincy, Bronson, and Union City all went down to defeat. Coldwater opened Interstate Eight Conference play on the road at Marshall last night, and the Cardinals’ defense would bend but not break and they escaped with a 9-7 victory over the Redhawks.
Coldwater scored first midway through the first quarter on a 32-year interception return for a touchdown by Luke Beckhusen. The failed 2 point conversion run put the Cardinals up 6-0. Then with 12 seconds left in the half, Sean Delaney connected for his first career field goal from 37-yards out and the half ended with Coldwater on top 9-0.
The score stayed that way until there were just 9 seconds remaining in the game when Marshall found the end zone on a 2-yard run and the point after kick was good to cut the Cardinals’ lead to 9-7. The Redhawks then attempted an on-sides kick but the ball was recovered by Coldwater’s Austin Krzeminski and the Cardinals ran out the clock to improve their record to 2-0.
Marshall fell to 1-and-1 with a defeat that saw the Redhawks dominate the offensive statistics outgaining the Cardinals in total yards 381-to-105. But Marshall also piled up the penalties, flagged 8 times for 85 yards compared to only 36 yards and 4 penalties for Coldwater with many of the Redhawks’ mistakes costing them scoring opportunities.
Our McDonald’s Player of the Game for Coldwater was senior middle linebacker Brandon Lewis who had a team-high 8 tackles. Coldwater’s next game is a week from tonight at home against Pennfield, which lost 28-14 last night to Parma Western. It’s expected that next Friday’s contest will be the first game to be played on the new synthetic turf at Cardinal Field with the installation of the all-purpose surface being setback by a number of construction delays which forced Coldwater’s home opener last week to be moved to Trine University in Angola.
