Eau Claire Memorial was all set to host Superior Friday Night for their homecoming. The iFan team came to Carson Park, the historic park a little early to catch the remnants of the homecoming parade and all the fans. We knew that we were going to have fun. Our pregame involved a special birthday wish to Don Leighton including cupcakes for us all.
The weather could not have been any more perfect and that is the way the Spartans started the game. The Spartans had their best first quarter drive of the season. Gaining big chunks of rushing yards they drove down the field and capped the drive with a 2 yard touchdown by Williams around the right end. A low snap on the extra point resulted in a missed try. Quarter ended Superior leading 6-0.
The second quarter game began to look like a typical Big Rivers slugfest. Memorial scored :50 into the quarter with a nice 37 yard pass from #1 Riley Holmberg to #5 Tayden Ferguson. The Extra point was good to take the lead 7-6. Spartans were able to work the ball down the field with the run. When Spartans failed to convert a 3rd and long Superior's #13 Tanner Leno kicked a 32 yard field goal to retake the lead 9-7 with 3:01 remaining in the half. Memorial's chance to answer and they did with a touchdown pass from #1 Riley Holmberg over the top from 5 yards out to #2 Julius Clark to close out the half with a 14-9 score.
The second half was controlled by Eau Claire Memorial. Memorial scored on a little trickery with a pass from #25 Bryce Hedtke to #5 Tayden Ferguson for 41 yards. Extra point good to make it 21-9. Memorial scored early in the fourth quarter when #1 passed a nice ball to left side of the endzone to #5 for his second score of the evening. The extra point was good. The Old Abes were up 28-9. The final score of the game came from #11 Shimar Simmons on a impressive 70 yard run to the right and a long dash to the endzone. The final score was 35-9 as the Old Abes will celebrate with the students on the field to cap off their Homecoming week.
The Nummi Jeweler "Gem of the Game" named was #11 Shimar Simmons, who had the impressive 70yard TD run, but had many hard runs up the middle to continually move the chains. The Spartans will be on the road next week as they travel to Hudson. iFanTV will be there and bring the action live.