Manchester University Loses Football Opener At Trine
Posted
Mark Adkins-
ANGOLA – A gritty effort from the Manchester University football team fell just short of a season-opening win Thursday night. Coach Shannon Griffith’s Spartans battled the host Trine Thunder down to the game’s final moments at Shive Field before falling 24-14. Manchester rallied from a 17-7 halftime deficit to make it a 17-14 count and had the ball in the closing minutes with a chance to take the lead. However, the Thunder found two key plays to enable them to hold on for 10-point win. After the Spartans tied the game at 7-7 late in the second quarter, Trine senior return specialist Myron Puryear II got a lane on the ensuing kickoff and was off the races on a 92-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. That was part of a 10-point run for the home team that gave it the 17-7 edge at the half. In the fourth quarter, after Manchester was held on a fourth down attempt at its own 46-yard line with less than two minutes to play and trailing by only three, senior quarterback Ryan Hargraves hit senior tight end Sean Collins on a 29-yard crossing route to convert a key third down that led to the final touchdown of the night. Like the game play itself, the statistics bore out a tightly-contested affair. The Spartans out-gained their hosts 254-244 thanks to a balanced offensive attack of 128 rushing yards and 126 passing yards. Manchester also had two more first downs (16-14) and time of possession was in its favor by nearly seven minutes. Among the individual leaders for Manchester was the junior-sophomore backfield tandem of quarterback Nick Williams (Fort Wayne) and running back Austin Adams (Dowagiac, Mich.). Williams cut through the middle of the Thunder defense for a nifty 18-yard touchdown scamper early in the final stanza as part of a 65-yard rushing and 130-yard passing night, while Adams carried the ball 15 times for 56 yards and MU’s opening score on a 4-yard plunge in the second quarter. Senior wide receiver Kurt Monix (Crown Point) topped the receiving corps with five catches for 40 yards, while on the defensive side of the ball, junior linebacker Dylin Kennedy (North Manchester) had a big season-opening effort with six and a half tackles and part of a sack to his credit. The Spartans return to non-conference play Sept. 8 with a 1 p.m. kickoff at Kalamazoo College in Michigan.
