Penalties and turnovers proved costly as the Tigers lost to Marquette, 42-28, on Sept. 15.

Within the first two minutes of the game, a fumble by OHS gave Marquette the ball at the OHS 20-yard line. This set up Marquette to run for the first touchdown of the game. The score was 7-0 with 10:01 still to go in the first quarter.

“Turnovers hurt us real bad early,” Head Coach Arlee Conner said. “When we turned over the first play of the game, we gave them the ball in score position; that’s hard.”

Two more Marquette touchdowns followed in the second quarter, one the result of another turnover.

“The turnovers really hurt us… and the lack of focus. That’s what we can practice, and we’ll be focused next time we get out here,” Conners said.

In addition to the costly turnovers, the team committed several penalties in the first half. Marquette led 28-7 at the end of the half.

Regardless of the mistakes made by the Tigers, Gerrelle Golden (11) scored three touchdowns (one in the first quarter, two in the fourth). Preston Schmidt (12) also added an additional touchdown in the fourth quarter. The effort in the fourth quarter finished with Golden’s third and final touchdown with only 39 seconds left in the game. Even though the last 12 minutes of the game were stronger than the rest, it wasn’t enough to overcome the large deficit.

“I don’t think we were as focused as we needed to be today, and unfortunately we lost to a team we should have beat.” Conner said. “We didn’t give ourselves a chance.”

OHS will play away against Fox on Friday Sept. 22, kickoff at 7 pm.