Photo by Caleb Brinton/The Fairmont Sentinel Marshall linebacker Andrew Stelter positions himself to make a tackle on Fairmont’s Merritt Pomerenke during a prep football game in Fairmont on Friday night.

FAIRMONT – The Fairmont Cardinals were unable to get the run game going against the Marshall Tigers on Friday night as the Tigers handed the Cardinals their first loss of the season with a 28-9 win in a South District, Central-Red Subdistrict football game.

The Cardinals also had to deal with losing their quarterback Joe Long to injury in the second quarter.

“They [Marshall] do a really good job of stopping the run,” said Fairmont football head coach Mat Mahoney. “When you don’t have your starting quarterback, it’s just hard to execute some pass plays. So we just had to put our kids in the best position we could to succeed

and hope for the best. I was proud of them, we executed in the red zone and we ended up getting 9 points out of the game.”

The Cardinals opened the scoring in the first quarter with a 25-yard Lucas Rosburg field goal. It didn’t take long for the Tigers who put up a three play 60-yard drive that was capped off by Jackson Sirovy 1-yard touchdown catch.

In the final minute of the first, tight end Jack Meier hauled in a catch resulting in a 21-yard touchdown ending the first.

Fairmont connected early with a pass from Long to Nolan Schultze that got the Cardinals to the Tigers’ 22-yard line.

Long left the game the next play after getting up slow from a hard hit by the Marshall defense, prompting the Cardinals to put Hadan Toomer under center. Toomer was able to string together a couple of runs for 14 yards, setting up a short fourth-and-goal when Toomer connected with Schultze for a 2-yard touchdown pass.

The Cardinals made the adjustment to slow down the aggressive run game of the Tigers, keeping them from expanding on their lead until there was 3:22 left in the quarter when Levi Maeyaert connected with Mason Eickhoff for a 22-yard touchdown, closing out the third up 21-9.

Maeyaert completed three of his seven attempts on the day for 35 yards and a pair of touchdowns while fumbling once.

The third and fourth quarters were a defensive battle, with the Cardinals trying to get on the board, but a fumble on the 8-yard line set up the final Tigers touchdown of the night courtesy of an Eickhoff 8-yard rushing touchdown.

Eickhoff finished the night as the Tigers’ leading rusher, carrying the ball nine times for 98 yards and a touchdown. Gavin Schaefer also carried the ball 14 times for 90 yards, a touchdown and a fumble.

The Cardinals were able to string together a couple of plays moving them down the field but unable to capitalize handed the ball back to the Tigers who ran off as much clock as possible before the final whistle blew securing the victory for the Tigers.

“Our boys didn’t give up,” said Mahoney. “They played hard for 48 minutes. I’m just really proud of our kids.”

The Tigers, now 5-1 and the No. 10 team in Class AAAA, host St. Peter on Friday.

The Cardinals, also 5-1 and the No. 3 team in Class AAA, will be at Worthington next on Friday.