Celtics spoil Craft's debut at Warrior helm
Hutch-Trinity pitches shutout in 26-0 win
Staff writer
A season opening football game is hardly the right time to suffer a memory loss, or stage fright, especially when your opponent is what you’re not — experienced.
Sadly, that’s how it appeared Friday night in Marion with the greenhorn Warriors taking on a solid Hutchinson-Trinity Celtic team.
The Warriors struggled executing on all sides of the ball in Coach Shaun Craft’s debut, dropping a 26-0 shutout to the Celtics.
The first-year coach was baffled explaining what went wrong.
“For some reason, the o-line got confused on their front (Trinity’s),” he said. “It’s hard to emulate their speed in practice and we don’t have a lot of depth to where we can afford injuries.
“Trinity’s similar to what we were last year and they’re a good team. A lot of it was missed assignments, which can be easily fixed. We had a lot of guys making their first varsity start and the game’s faster than the JV pace.”
Friday night was a display of just how much of a toll graduation took on the Warriors with numerous new faces making their first start.
The Celtics, who return 11 starters on offense and 9 on defense, used that to their advantage, limiting the Warriors to just seven first downs while racing to a 14-0 to start the second quarter.
The experienced weapons Marion has in quarterback Chase Stringer and running back Evann Heidebrecht were in a funk all night.
Stringer spent much of the night running for his life, being sacked three times, and Heidebrecht was dealing with Celtic defenders in the backfield the entire game.
A shortage on depth on both sides of the ball allowed Trinity to sting the Warriors for 435 total yards with 358 coming on the ground and all four touchdowns.
The Celtics’ quarterback Kaleb Hammeke and Aaron Guerrero did all the damage with Hammeke running roughshod for a game-high 183 yards and three scores.
Guerrero supplied the other touchdown, carrying 22 times for 147 yards.
Even with 115 yards in penalties, Trinity imposed its will on the Warriors.
Marion remains at home Friday, hosting Sterling in a 7 p.m. kickoff.
The Black Bears are coming off a 48-7 assault by the Ell-Saline Cardinals.
Last modified Sept. 6, 2018