MARAUDER FOOTBALL ENDS SEASON WITH 45-18 WIN OVER LA SOUTHWEST

Photo by Drew Hall

Marauder Football ended their season with a 45-18 win over LA Southwest and now have to wait to see if they will play in their first bowl game in six seasons.

The Marauders have a 6-4 overall record and ended 4-3 in the American Pacific - tied for third with Santa Barbara and Pierce.

Usually there are only four bowl berths for American Conference teams, and it was announced Sunday that only those four berths would be awarded leave the Marauders the first team on the outside looking in. .

The game opened with Blake Shepherd, trying to become the third Marauder to gain 3000 yards passing and the only one to do it in a season, hitting three straight passes for a total of 60 yards for the score.

Shepherd ended the game just 25 yards short of 3000, with 259 yards on an 18 for 31 passing day good for four touchdowns.  In the game he added to his record both the Marauder season mark for pass attempts and pass completions.

The Cougars struck right back with a four play 76 yard but a wild snap on the point after attempt was picked up by Kendall Berry and returned for two points.

The Marauders then scored three straight times, including a 50 yard pass to Alex Byers.  That score was significant in that it put Byers past his coach Jerome Wright for receiving yardage in a season.  Wright had 1008 yards in 2002.  Byers, with 111 yards on six catches on the game, pushed that out to 1072 yards.

Defensively for the Marauders, Michael Phillips had his best game as a Marauder, being involved in 14 tackles, while forcing and recovering two fumbles.  Matthew Mazas recovered another fumble and returned an interception 19 yards.