St. Mary's falls to Nestucca in first game

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St. Mary's falls to Nestucca in first game CLOVERDALE - The St. Mary's football program is back. Despite losing their season opener to Nestucca 29-6 Saturday, the Crusaders have a team back on the field after shutting down part way through last season. St. Mary's is playing an independent schedule. "We hung in there," St. Mary's coach Dick Maurer said. "We've just got young kids. We have a whole offensive unit that had never taken a snap. We had first game jitters. We fumbled around five times." St. Mary's drove about 75 yards to score near the end of the game on a 2-yard run by sophomore quarterback Mike Rust. The Crusaders almost scored right before halftime when defensive end Warren Cooper picked up a fumble inside the St. Mary's 2 and rumbled all the way to the Nestucca three before being caught from behind. "That was a heck of a highlight," said Maurer. "He was running like crazy." The St. Mary's offense was limited to 98 yards on the ground. Defensively, linebackers John Wing and Eric Burg came up big. "The linebackers kept us in the game. We got beat on the outside, but these guys controlled the inside pretty good." St. Mary's .....................................................0 0 0 6 - 6 Nestucca ...................................................8 14 0 7 - 29   Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.