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MENOMINEE---The Menominee High School football team scored four touchdowns in the first quarter and never looked back Friday night, blowing out the Gladstone Braves, 61-6, on Maroons Homecoming at Blesch Stadium.
Senior quarterback Tanner Theuerkauf threw three touchdown passes, all of them to fellow senior Landen Daigneau, to help the Maroons jump to a 27-0 lead before the first quarter was over.
Theuerkauf also scored on a 49-yard touchdown run to start the Menominee scoring on the third play of the game, eluding several Braves defenders in the backfield before racing down the sideline into the end zone.
Gladstone's only score came late in the second quarter when junior quarterback Cooper Sanville found a wide-open senior Trevor Thorbahn in the middle of the field for a 20-yard strike on third and long. But the Braves never got close to scoring again, and the turnovers and injuries piled up in the second half as the Maroons reserves tacked on three more touchdowns.
"We talked about getting off to a fast start, but then we give up that big play," Gladstone Coach Craig Ness said. "We were our own worst enemy again. We've just got to clean it up. It comes down to our execution again. We're not getting off the ball, things we can fix. It's friustrating, especially when you play a good team. They were all gas and no brakes, that's for sure."
Menominee's Clayton Miller and Jackson Myszak both scored rushing touchdowns during a 41-point first half, as the Maroons routinely started their possessions inside Gladstone territory.
That was thanks to the returns of senior Dawson Bardowksi, combined with a Gladsone offense that could not move the ball consistantly enough to even give punter Carter Farnes much room to work with. Farnes, to his credit, had a strong game punting, pullng down several high snaps to get the ball out of trouble while kicking from his own goal line.
Menominee, ranked No. 1 in the latest Upper Peninsula Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association poll, improved to 6-0 on the season.
The Braves, meanwhile, fell to 2-4, with their final home game of the season next Friday night against the Houghton Gremlins (1-5). It will be the last time on the Marble Athletic Field grass for the Braves' 15 seniors.
"I'd love to send them off on a good note, so we'll see what happens," Ness said. "We'll regroup."
Game time is 7:00. Listen on FM-93.5, AM-600, and at www.rrnsports.com.
