With Alex Graham’s 2 touchdowns in fourth quarter, Marquette upends Aurora Christian

OTTAWA — If it hadn’t been so warm and incredibly humid, one might have sworn that there was a playoff game going on at Gould Stadium on Friday night … and one wouldn’t be very far from right.

Trailing Aurora Christian 20-12 at the start of the fourth quarter, the Marquette Crusaders got two huge fourth-quarter connections from quarterback Alex Graham to end Logan Nelson, the first a 67-yard back-shoulder catch and run and, after a huge fumble recovery by Henry McGrath, a broken play good for a 35-yard score with just 21.6 seconds left.

Those scores and the game-ending second interception of the game by Griffin Walker gave MA a thrilling 26-20, season-opening victory over Aurora Christian.

Graham had completed just 3 of 8 passes for 18 yards in the first half as the Cru rode the hard running of backs Jurnee Reed (18 carries, 87 yards) and Tommy Durdan (9 carries, 68 yards) to 12-12 deadlock at the break. But after an 8-yard TD run by Drew Kegebein in the third period put the visitors on top, the Cru shook off a myriad of mistakes, dropped passes, missed tackles and silly penalties to start the season off on a wild but positive note.

“We made way too many mistakes, just way too many,” Marquette coach Tom Jobst said, “but the one thing that I told the kids, to actually win the game, and the one thing that couldn’t be changed was their will to stay in it and fight and play, so through all that adversity – most of it self-imposed – they did keep playing hard all the way. That was the difference.”

AC quarterback Max Bray was a thorn in MA’s side all night, getting 48 of his 94 yards on 17 rushes in the Eagles’ first drive, capped by his 1-yard sneak. On the next drive, MA got a 5-yard burst by Reed, but Bray soon hit a leaping Owen Hampton for a 5-yard TD to regain the margin.

Marquette used a 16-yard Graham-to-Durdan pass on fourth-and-7 to set up Graham’s 1-yard sneak to tie it at 12 with just 8.5 seconds left before half.

Walker’s first pick stopped one AC threat at the Cru 8, but a fumble on the next play led to Kegebein’s go-ahead touchdown with 8:34 left in the third period.

The hosts evened the score when Graham heaved a bomb that the tightly-covered Nelson broke stride, stepped back and caught, then finished the 67-yard play with 11:24 showing in the fourth.

A short Marquette punt gave the Eagles the ball at the Cru 34, but after Bray broke through for a first down on fourth-and-1, McGrath stripped the ball and recovered at the home 15.

Two 15-yard penalties on the Eagles helped the Crusaders move the ball as time was running out. Finally, on third-and-8 at the AC 35, Graham rolled right under pressure, buying time to find Nelson in the end zone for the winner with just 21.6 on the clock.

“I was running my fade and didn’t know what Alex was doing, other than rolling out,” Nelson said. “But he got a lot of time out of it, so I moved toward the middle, lost the defender and put my hand up, and he just launched it. … I wasn’t surprised at all. He does this in practice all the time, and he always puts it where he wants it.”

“This is probably the coolest thing that could have happened to us Week 1,” said Graham, who finished 5 for 13 for 120 yards and the two scores. “We came out and played terrible, man, but we found a way to get big plays when we needed them.”

The veteran Crusaders outgained young AC 285-251 overall in yards from scrimmage.

“It’s a rough game,” AC coach Dave Beebe said. “We showed our youth tonight. We have way fewer seniors than the team we played, and it showed. They have experience, and teams that have that win games like this. … We’re getting experience, but not fast enough. Hopefully we’ll learn from this.

“We felt it was a good matchup with [Bray] running the ball, but unfortunately he was tired at the end, and that was a factor, but everyone was tired. …

“[Marquette’s] leadership won tonight. That’s the bottom line.”