Football opens OAC play with 42-14 victory over Muskingum

By Tim Glon

ADA — Junior Anthony McFadden (Chillicothe/Paint Valley) ran for a career-high 112 yards and threw for 223 yards and two touchdowns to lead the Ohio Northern football team to a 42-14 victory over Muskingum on a rainy Saturday afternoon at Dial-Roberson Stadium.

The Polar Bears (2-0 overall, 1-0 Ohio Athletic Conference) also got 81 yards rushing and a touchdown from sophomore A.J. Marks (Guysville/Alexander) and 44 yards rushing and three touchdowns from freshman Brock Martin (Attica/Seneca East).

The Muskies (1-1, 0-1) were led by Brody Hahn with 88 yards rushing and 199 yards passing.

After a three-and-out to start the game, Ohio Northern scored touchdowns on three consecutive drives to take a 21-7 halftime lead.

Martin banged in for TD scores of 1 and 2 yards as ONU led 14-0 just 10 minutes into the game.

After the Muskies pulled within 14-7, McFadden hit senior Caleb Saalfeld (Modesto, Calif./Fred Beyer) on a 39-yard TD pass with 9:55 left in the half to make it 21-7.

Northern then scored on its first three second half possessions to put the game away.

McFadden hit senior Chad Rex (Bradenton, Fla./Lakewood Ranch) on a 16-yard touchdown pass to make it 28-7 with 6:00 left in the third quarter.

Martin banged in from a yard out with 11:59 left in the game to put ONU up 35-7 and Marks scored on a 5-yard run to cap the scoring with 3:49 left in the game.

"We did a good job running the ball and were better in the passing game today," ONU head coach Dean Paul said. "Muskingum has a very good defense and we knew it would be a challenge to move the ball. We also did a good job of containing their weapons on offense. Their QB (Hahn) is a big strong guy that can run and throw and we did a nice job on him."

ONU out-gained MU 459-422 in total offense.

The Ohio Northern defense stopped Muskingum on three of its trips to the red zone, forcing a missed field goal and stopped the Muskies twice on downs on back-to-back possessions in the third quarter.

Junior David Haseleu (Pittsburgh, Pa./Montour) had a career-high 12 tackles and junior Mark Niles (Miramar, Fla.) had 11 tackles for ONU.

The Polar Bears will return to action next Saturday for the final game of their season-opening three-game home stand with a 1:30 pm contest against Wilmington at Dial-Roberson Stadium.