This past weekend Otterbein hosted Marietta and lost 30-27. Austin Schlosser looked absolutely abysmal while the rest of the team looked great, especially the defense. After giving up 42 points to Mount Union I expected the Otterbein defense to come out and stop Marietta. I wasn’t disappointed by their performance. However I was disappointed in Schlosser’s game at quarterback.
In the first quarter alone Austin Schlosser threw two interceptions and Steve Kuzyk fumbled the ball leading to thirteen points for the Marietta Pioneers. Otterbein’s defense looked very impressive by holding Marietta to two field goals when they were about thirty yards away from the end zone. However Schlosser continued to struggle in the second quarter.
He did throw a touchdown pass to Trey Fairchild to make it a 13-7 game but Schlosser threw two interceptions on the next two drives. Marietta was only able to score one touchdown due to Otterbein’s strong defense. At the end of the first half the score was 20-7 and I asked myself, could Schlosser improve in the second half or would Marietta blow this game wide open? Fortunately Schlosser did improve.
In the second half Schlosser came out and showed why he is the starting quarterback. He threw two touchdown passes but the Aaric Milligan missed the extra point on the second one to give Otterbein the lead. The game was tied at 20 and then Marietta’s quarterback, Andrew Keller threw a touchdown pass to take the lead 27-20.
Then in the fourth quarter Schlosser threw his fifth interception when the team was about 13 yards away from the game tying score. He did show great composure on the next drive when he took the Cards down the field and threw the game-tying touchdown to Mike Ryan with 1:22 left in the game.
The question then came, could Otterbein hold Marietta one last time to send the game to overtime? They didn’t. Keller led the Pioneers to the 28 yard line and then Jesse Shore made the game winning field goal, un-freakin-believable.
Otterbein was better than Marietta in every way possible. They had the better defense, the better running game, and the better special-teams returner in Trey Fairchild who single handedly kept the Cards in this game. The only area that we weren’t better at was quarterback. Schlosser threw a total of five interceptions that only led to 10 points because of how great our defense was.
This was a game we should have won but didn’t. Thankfully there is still one more game left this season and hopefully the Cards will end it with a win. It’s Wilmington for crying out loud, we should win.
