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Finlandia earns 1st win of season

HANCOCK – Entering Saturday’s game against Maranatha Baptist, winless on the season, Finlandia University football coach Tim Driscoll figured he would roll the dice if the opportunity arose.

And sure enough, the Lions did just that in recording a 27-22 victory at McAfee Field.

The first gamble came early in the game when an option-pass play was called for FU tight end Tyler Kangas.

Kangas connected with Colin Immel for a 53-yard scoring play.

“Tyler Kangas, who’s a very good athlete, was a quarterback at Manistique High,” Driscoll noted. “We knew he could throw the pass It’s in our playbook.”

The Lions also tried three fourth down plays in the game.

“We were just one out of three on those plays,” Driscoll said. “But the last one worked and gave us a critical first down late in the game.”

A 3-yard scoring run by tailback Henry Williams later in the opening period gave FU a 14-0 lead.

But the visiting SaberCats kept plugging away and narrowed the margin to 20-13 by the intermission.

The sturdy Finlandia defense forced Maranatha to go to the air after the first quarter.

“They wanted to run the football,” Driscoll said. “But we forced them out of that and they changed their offense to a passing game.”

And while MBC quarterback Josh Hill did complete 20-of-45 passes for 202 yards, the Lions allowed just a pair of short TD passes to Calvin Morrison – the last one with just 1:19 left to play.

Lions’ QB Eddie Yearby had thrown a 38-yard scoring strike to flanker Corey Dunn in the third frame.

Williams, a sophomore from Watersmeet, paced the winners offense with 157 yards in 30 tries.

“Henry (Williams) had a really nice day,” Driscoll said. “That enabled us to run the ball and control the clock.”

Dunn caught five passes for 73 yards to lead in that department.

On defense, Jaavaid Love recorded 15 tackles for the winners, while Nic Walli (LL-Hubbell) had 12 more.

“Our guys responded really well after they (SaberCats) rallied back,” Driscoll said.

Finlandia took a safety running out of the final seconds of the game.

FU will take a week off and then host Trinity Bible College on Nov. 5.

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