Koenig shares his thoughts on team performance

I was impressed with our team’s resilience through the weather and injuries.  There were a lot of ups and downs in that game but our players kept fighting through and playing hard.”

Head Coach Jeff Koenig

Two games, two wins—not a bad start to the season, if you will. Taking to the field Friday August 25 against the Marathon Red Raiders, the Stanley-Boyd Oriole varsity came away the victorious, defeating Marathon 50 - 6 at Oriole Park. 

Starting after a rain delay interlude that followed the National Anthem, the Oriole varsity took the field and quickly gave Marathon a headache, Madden Mahr scoring the first Oriole touchdown with 4:06 left in the first quarter. The Orioles kicking off, the ball soon returned their possession, with Landon Hoel bringing the ball upfield for the Orioles, the end of the first quarter seeing the ball on the 34-yard line. 

Advancing into the second, the Red Raiders attempted an interception before the ball was recovered by Landon Karlen. From there Jake LaGrander and Rudy Kletsch made runs up the middle, before a second touchdown was registered by Cole Brenner with 9:45 left on the second quarter clock. 

The conversion good, this brought the Orioles 14 - 0 again the Red Raiders. 

Receiving in turn, Marathon stumbled on the return which allowed the Orioles to keep yardage gain down, before Oriole Robert Poole tackled Marathon with 9:20 left in the second quarter, yardage resulting in a Red Raider first down. With Oriole Ben Bowe tackling the Marathon quarterback and Chase Sturm making a tackle at the 42 yard line, Marathon took a time out to regroup. 

With an out of bounds punt resulting in an Oriole first down at 7:45 left in the second, a touchdown reception by Mahr soon brought the score 20 - 0 in the Oriole’s favor. With flag on the conversion play resulting in a second try field goal, the score stayed 20-0. 

With more game action from Troy Trevino and Sturm, Karlen took the ball for a 94-yard touchdown run with 2:44 left in the half, the conversion followup pass no good but the Orioles sitting 26-0 nonetheless. 

With halftime seeing parents announced for parent’s night along with a winning junior raffle ticket, the start of the second saw a 90-yard touchdown run by Mahr, a personal foul facemask flag on the Orioles at the 27-yard line meaning that it didn’t count for scoreboard purposes. 

The Orioles regrouping at the 13-yard line for a first and 10 play, a few more touchdowns by Stanley-Boyd and one by Marathon brought the score 50 - 6 when the clock ran out at the end of the game. Oriole Head Coach Jeff Koenig shared his thoughts on the Oriole’s performance Friday and looking forward. 

“We saw definite improvement from week one but have a long way to go,” he said after the game Friday. “ We need to keep improving our pad level.  We also had way too many penalties and need to clean that up. I was impressed with our team’s resilience through the weather and injuries.  There were a lot of ups and downs in that game but our players kept fighting through and playing hard.” 

The Orioles next play Fall Creek at Fall Creek High School on Friday September 1. Game start is 7 p.m.