On Saturday, Oct. 26, the Cardinal football team traveled to Big Rapids, where they would fall to No. 2 Ferris State University. The Bulldogs, who are on an eight-game win streak, continued their dominance this season, allowing only one field goal and touchdown in the game.
The Bulldogs recorded the first points of the game with a field goal early in the first quarter. The Cardinals evened the score off a 52-yard field goal from sophomore kicker Connor Luksic. The field goal was Luksic’s farthest of his career, adding five yards to his previous best.
Following the field goal from Luksic, the Cardinals struggled to get the ball moving on offense, while also struggling to stop Ferris State on defense.
With just over a minute left in the first quarter, Ferris State would complete a 63-yard pass to give the game its first touchdown.
Unable to counter on offense, the Cardinals would be forced to punt the ball away the next drive. The Cardinals continued to trail as the Bulldogs would tack on an additional two touchdowns in the second quarter.
Starting the second half of the game, Ferris received the ball but would eventually fumble in the endzone to senior linebacker Austin Egler for a touchback. This allowed the Cardinals, to score a touchdown in two plays off a 78-yard pass from senior quarterback Ryan Conklin to junior wideout Chad Gailliard.
The touchdown would be the Cardinals only of the game and was followed by a successful extra point kick by Luksic. The Bulldogs were able to score twice more before the game concluded, leaving the final score at 34-10 in favor of Ferris.
The team has stayed overwhelmingly positive after losing the last three games on the road.
“We’ve been on the road for three weeks now, and we’ll be playing in our house next week against Ashland,” sophomore Dominick Fiscelli said. “Ashland is another good team, and we feed off that.”
Senior linebacker Justin Whitted, who recorded a game-leading 13 tackles, said he is ready to play in front of his classmates again this week.
“We plan on getting it done at the crib this week,” Whitted said.
Preparing for Ashland this Saturday, the Cardinals will need to pull out a win to stay above .500 on the season. Luksic said he believes the key to staying ahead is keeping focus throughout the game.
“We just need to focus on playing four quarters of football,” Luksic said. “That’s where we’ve struggled this season. We’ll be ready on Saturday.”
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