MARSHALL –The Marshall Tigers football team went on the road to Tri-City United undefeated and came out just the same. After being on the winning end of blowouts in their previous two games, their match against TCU was a bit more contentious, but they still won by two possessions with a final score of 17-8.

After being shut out through the first three quarters, the Tigers exploded for 17 points in the fourth for a comeback victory.

Omar Abdi was the first Tigers to put some points on the board. He was on the receiving end of a 35-yard touchdown. Abdi would finish the game with seven catches for 72 yards.

Following the score, the Tigers ran a pass play to Jett Wing for a successful 2-point conversion to tie the game up at 8-8.

Shortly thereafter, Marshall was able to capitalize on a TCU mistake. The Titans attempted to punt the ball back to Marshall with the score tied, but the snap went high and over the head of the TCU Punter. The Titans recovered the fumble, but were unable to advance it out of the end zone before the Marshall defense was all over them for the tackle, giving Marshall a 10-8 lead with the safety.

After throwing the touchdown pass earlier in the fourth quarter that allowed Marshall to tie the game, Tyler Maeyaert made a big defensive play to ice it for the Tigers. Playing defense, Maeyaert was able to make a play on the ball as a defensive back and come down with the interception. Maeyaert didn’t stop there, though, and advanced the ball all the way into the end zone to give Marshall a 17-8 lead which they would not relinquish.

Maeyaert finished the game with 74 passing yards on 26 attempts as the quarterback.

The run game has been a staple of the Marshall offense, but was generally stifled in this game. Chidi Nwakuma led the Tigers in rushing yards with 25. Of the Tigers’ five players who had a carry in the game, more of them finished with fewer than five yards than with more than 10.

Still, the ground game has been largely consistent, and when the defense is able to step up the way they did Thursday night, the lack of ground success isn’t much reason to raise alarm.

Tri-City United scored their one touchdown of the game, along with the two point conversion, towards the end of the third quarter, giving them a lead that they would take into the final period.

Following the win, Marshall improves to 5-0 on the season. The tigers were a team that had doubters at the beginning of the season, but head coach Terry Bahlmann and his team are proving to everyone at this point that they are certainly the real deal and a team that needs to be taken seriously.

The Marshall Tigers will return home on Friday in the hopes of continuing their undefeated season against the St. Peter Saints,who have started the season with a record of 1-3.

Marshall 17, Tri-County United 8

MAR 0 0 0 17

TCU 0 0 8 0

SCORING SUMMARY

FIRST QUARTER

no scoring

SECOND QUARTER

no scoring

THIRD QUARTER

TCU: touchdown (2-point conversion is good)

FOURTH QUARTER

MAR: 35-yard touchdown to Omar Abdi (2-point conversion is good)

MAR: Safety

MAR: 20-yard interception return by Tyler Maeyaert

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

Passing (Cmp-Att-Yds-TD): Marshall (Maeyaert 9-26-74-1)

Rushing (Att-Yds-TD): Marshall (Nwakum

a 4-25; Mason Eichoff 5-13; Jett Wing 2-9; Cody Brownlee 4-1; Dylan Louwagie 1- -4)

Receiving (Rec-Yds-TD): Marshall (Abdi 7-72-1; Tate Condezo 102; Nwakuma 1-0)