Head coach Ryan Winkler’s ….

Head coach Ryan Winkler’s Marathon squad lost, 40-0, to Amherst but he was just happy the Red Raiders were able to play against anyone on Friday.

“We were disappointed Thorp had to cancel the game against us,” Winkler said. “Curt Miller, Marathon athletic director, and myself made multiple attempts to set up games with other schools not having a game on Friday, but we had no luck.

“We pretty much thought there wouldn’t be a game, but then Amherst called and said a school just cancelled on them. So at about 4:30 p.m. on Friday we decided to play Amherst. We knew Amherst is one of the best teams in the area again this year, but we wanted to make sure the players could play a game and we figured one way to make the team better is to play against a quality opponent.”

Amherst scored touchdowns on five of its six offensive drives in the first half to take a 33-0 lead at the break. Both the Red Raiders and Falcons had the same number of offensive plays, 46, and time of possession with 24 minutes each.

The story of the game was Amherst was more effi cient on offense with 492 total yards, compared to 133 for Marathon.

The Falcons were also better in the clutch than the Red Raiders, for example Amherst converted five of seven on third downs while Marathon was only one of nine on third downs. Amherst also converted its lone fourth-down attempt, while Marathon was one of three on fourth down.

Marathon junior quarterback Ben Robbins completed seven of his 16 pass attempts for 52 yards, and sophomore Matt Annis ran the ball 10 times for 45 yards.

Senior Mike Hahn led the Red Raiders’ defense with nine tackles, including eight of them being solo. He also had four tackles for loss and one quarterback sack.