Hope Academy’s speed, attitude too much for Marquette

CHICAGO — Speed in any sport can make the opposition look bad, but when you combine that with execution and attitude, watch out.

Hope Academy, ranked No. 6 in the latest Associated Press Class 1A poll, showed against No. 10 Marquette at Altgeld Park on Friday that it has all three of those things.

It showed the speed to put up five plays of 35 yards or more on its way to 501 yards of total offense, the attitude to not give in when the Crusaders answered its first half scores and the execution to dominate the clock and hold Marquette scoreless in the final two quarters.

All together those thing spelled a dominating 40-25 Eagles victory over Marquette.

The Cru traded punches with the Eagles in the first half, getting three touchdown passes from quarterback Alex Graham — two to Charlie Mullen and one to Logan Nelson — and a TD run from Jurnee Reed, but Marquette couldn’t keep pace.

Tommy Durdan rushed 13 times for 65 yards and Reed added 16 tries for 58 yards, but all but seven of those yards came in the first two periods. Graham finished 7 for 14 for 131 yards as Marquette dropped to 4-1 on the season. Hope improves to 5-0.

“When you go up against a team with the size, strength and speed Hope has, things like this are always a possibility, and on top of that, they had attitude tonight,” Marquette coach Tom Jobst said. “No ifs, ands or buts, they came to play tonight, so hats off to them. We thought we’d seen speed like that, but we haven’t. I thought our kids did a nice job, but tonight they just outplayed us.

“This is the fastest team we’ve played in my time at Marquette. They’ve always had speed, but not this much. Maybe one guy, but this is a really complete team and their defense is much improved … This happens to the best of teams, so all we can do is move on, have the kids come in Monday and see what we’re made of.”

A 27-yard scoring strike from Graham to Nelson got the Cru on the scoreboard first, but on the first play of the ensuing series, Hope quarterback Eddie Jenkins Jr. hit Judah Mallette on a quick slant for a 65-yard touchdown. The first of four extra points from kicker Helen Linares gave the hosts a 7-6 edge.

After a Marquette three-and-out, two Hope penalties moved the hosts back 20 yards, but Jenkins broke a 84-yard run to widen the margin.

A 2-yard TD run by Reed to start the second quarter got the Cru closer and a fumble recovery by Durdan set up a go-ahead 10-yard scoring pass from Graham to Mullen for an 18-14 Marquette lead. But true to form, the Eagles answered with another big play, this time a 73-yard run by Jerome Stuckey.

Graham to Mullen for 31 yards gave the locals the lead again, 25-21, but again, only briefly. Jenkins completed four straight passes for 65 yards, the last 11 of those to Treyvon Prince to give the Eagles the lead for good.

The home team went with a clock-eating power game with JaMarkus Lofton and Jaeveon Hilton in the second half, the two accounting for 74 and 60 yards rushing, respectively, to set up insurance scores by Hilton in the fourth quarter.

The Eagles limited Marquette to just 26 yards in the second half.

“The biggest thing for us this year is culture,” Hope coach Chris Mallette said. “This is my fourth year at Hope … and we have players this year who are taking ownership of this team, not looking to anyone else but actually leading. It’s great when the kids go from playing with each other to playing for each other, and that makes us dangerous. The execution, we stressed that all week.

“Marquette is a great team … Every time we’d do something, we knew they were going to dial something up, but the difference tonight was the level of discipline that they had on both sides of the ball.”