Marina football shuts out Westminster in Battle of Boswell

WESTMINSTER —  Marina penetrated the red zone four times in the first half of its football opener — twice inside the 5-yard line — and came away with just one score.

The Vikings required a half-dozen possessions Friday night to get past first-game jitters, but they found a rhythm after going ahead 54 seconds before halftime and rode quarterback Garrett Hunnicutt and a swarming defense to victory in a 23-0 romp in their first meeting with Westminster in five years.

Hunnicutt rushed a yard for a first-half touchdown four plays after his 24-yard sprint, just the second Marina rush for more than 2 yards. He then connected on successive drives with Shane Cassidy as the Vikings debuted with a victory for the first time since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and just the fourth in 21 years.

“That was definitely the first game of the year, right?” said Marina coach Charlie TeGantvoort, who endured two intentional-grounding calls, one on a punt attempt and a snap over Hunnicutt’s head. “You could see it, you could feel it. Hopefully, we got all the jitters out, the cobwebs off, the rust off, and I love how we finished.”

As Marina, the home team on Westminster’s Boswell Field, struggled to get its offense moving, things were nearly perfect on the other side of the ball. The Vikings’ defense — a group led by middle linebacker Jake Russell, outside linebackers Troy Atkins and Angel Garcia, and defensive end Duk Caldwell — sacked quarterback Edwin Hopkins twice on the first five plays, allowed just one gain of more than a yard on Westminster’s first 17 offensive snaps and didn’t permit a first down until the final play of the half.

It led to gorgeous field position — four of six first-half drives began inside the Lions’ 40 — but little else. Cassidy dropped two balls in the end zone and a fourth-down throw to Shayden Sorochman was ably defended by Noah Pedraza to kill red-zone forays, and Aidan Hunt’s 79-yard, second-quarter interception return to the 3-yard line led to nothing.

The effort inspired Marina’s offense.

“Once we were not executing, we were like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to get this done for the defense,’” said Hunnicutt, who completed all nine of his second-half passes for 143 yards and 20- and 56-yard Cassidy scores. “They’re out there balling out, playing their hearts out, and we just had to get it done.”

Hunnicutt’s touchdown capped a quick, 33-yard possession as the half neared its close, and the Vikings began moving the ball effectively after the break. The offensive line, with no prior experience beyond center Emitt Been, found its footing and produced a long drive near the end of the third quarter capped with Cassidy’s end-zone catch, and a seven-play, 96-yard jaunt on Marina’s first fourth-quarter possession, most of it on a touchdown bomb down the right sideline.

Marina added a late safety when a bad snap forced punter Jayden Tan to step out of the end zone.

Cassidy “felt proud” to contribute after the early miscues. “I had to get the jitters out of the way,” he said.

“He just locked in,” Hunnicutt said. “He was having a rough game in the beginning [but] came through when we needed it.”

The evolution of the offensive line also excited the Vikings’ quarterback.

“They grew a ton,” he said. “By the end of the game, I was sitting in the pocket, and it felt like there was nobody rushing me. It felt like seven-on-seven. They were blocking amazing.”

The Vikings were stout defensively all game — Westminster finished with minus-7 yards on the ground, and 43 of its 60 total yards came on a third-quarter Hopkins-to-Pedraza completion to midfield.

“[Westminster] couldn’t get outside,” TeGantvoort said. “They were coming off the edge all night, and it was great to see those guys just come alive.”

Nonleague

Marina 23, Westminster 0

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Westminster 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 — 0

Marina 0 - 7 - 7 - 9 — 23

FIRST QUARTER

None.

SECOND QUARTER

M — Hunnicutt 1 run (Scolfield kick), 0:54.

THIRD QUARTER

M — Cassidy 20 pass from Hunnicutt (Scolfield kick), 0:53.

FOURTH QUARTER

M — Cassidy 56 pass from Hunnicutt (Scolfield kick), 6:16.

M — Safety (Tan stepped out of end zone), 4:19.

INDIVIDUAL RUSHING

W — J. Ortega, 10-3; V. Nguyen 1-3.

M — Saporito, 19-42.

INDIVIDUAL PASSING

W — Hopkins, 8-16-1, 67.

M — Hunnicutt, 14-21-0, 171, 2 TDs.

INDIVIDUAL RECEIVING

W — Cedillo, 5-27.

M — Cassidy, 3-89, 2 TDs.