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GLADSTONE---The Menominee High School football team cruised past the Gladstone Braves, 43-6, Friday night in Gladstone. The defending state champion Maroons stayed undefeated and will spend another week as the top-ranked team both in the Upper Peninsula, and in the entire State of Michigan. The Braves fell to 1-5 on the season.
Maroons senior running back Jackson Myszak scored on three short touchdown runs, and fellow senior quarterback Dylan Beal threw two long touchdown passes (to Kiefer Chouinard and Jett Thonne).
The Maroons jumped to a 24-0 lead at halftime, then eventually took advantage of Braves turnovers to score three more times in the second half to set the running clock in motion. Myszak, a candidate for UP Mr, Football, had another 100-plus-yard game.
Gladstone, despite losing its fifth straight game, competed hard, especially on defense, stopping the Maroons twice on fourth down plays. In the first quarter, Cooper Sanville delivered a crushing hit on 4th-and-5, and later, Dylan Nelson and Ryder Amis combined to stop Myszak on a run on 4th-and-1.
Another highlight for the Braves was the punting of 240-pound senior Ben Wilson, who booted the ball six times, often getting 40 or more yards of field position. And Wyatt Forvilly was the Braves' workhorse, running the football 34 times for just over 100 yards, and he scored Gladstone's only touchdown late in the fourth quarter.
But this night was all about the Maroons, after Beal completed touchdown passes of 42 and 34 yards. Beal also completed three two-point conversion passes to Nate Nelson, Brayden Woods, and Brody Daigneau.
The Braves have had major problems with their snaps on offense this season, and in the first half, those problems went away. But in the second half, a bad snap on the first play led to a fumble that Menominee cashed in on the Beal-to-Chouinard pass.
Later, a miscommunication led to a snap that missed everybody, and went backwards by more than 20 yards. This was the third time this season that the Braves had a botched snap like that, and this time, Zander Jurkiewicz picked it up and raced 35 yards for a “scoop n score” touchdown which gave Menominee a 43-0 lead in the fourth quarter.
With the game on the mercy rule clock, the Maroons emptied the bench. The Braves went on a 14-play, 67-yard drive, that ended with a one-yard touchdown run by Forvilly. It was Gladstone's first score after going seven straight quarters with no points. It was set up by a diving catch by Nick Proehl off a Landon Pepin pass, good for 24 yards.
Menominee (6-0) will be challenged over the final three weeks of the regular season, with games against Negaunee (4-2), Kingsford (6-0), and Bark River-Harris (6-0). Two of those games are on the road.
Gladstone (1-5) will travel to Houghton (1-5), before hosting Calumet (4-2) and Escanaba (2-4) to end the season.
