St. Francis escapes vs. Grayling; both teams 2-2 after 28-22 barnburner

Sep. 15—TRAVERSE CITY — Traverse City St. Francis escaped a wild game against Grayling. Just barely.

Braxton Lesinski recovered a late fumble on Grayling's last gasp, cementing a 28-22 home-opener victory for St. Francis in Friday's Northern Michigan Football Conference-Legends Division game at Thirlby Field.

"At halftime, we knew we needed a bounce back," Gladiators junior linebacker Warren Asher said. "We knew we had the power, and we had the mental mindset. That's what carried us through that game, was our mentality. We were mentally clear that entire game, and when we knew we were going to come out on top."

Grayling (2-2, 0-2 NMFC-Legends) sought only its second victory over St. Francis (2-2, 1-1 NMFC-Legends) and first at Thirlby, but the Vikings came up just a bit short.

Jake Huspen's 2-yard touchdown run and subsequent two-point conversion run gave the Vikings a 22-15 lead with 8:24 remaining.

"We want to win those ones, but we just didn't play well enough offensively," Grayling head coach Eric Tunney said. "The defense played lights out and got a lot of turnovers. We have to convert those to points. St. Franny is down for them, but they're still St. Francis. You can't make those mistakes and expect to win."

Huspen ran for 200 yards in two of three games, but the Gladiators' defense concentrated on him and held the senior to 41 yards and two touchdowns on 17 carries. He also caught two passes for 18 yards.

"We had a few drops early and didn't protect well," Tunney said. "Give St. Francis credit. They had a great game plan, and we just have to make plays."

St. Francis knotted up the game 22-22 on Cam Sellers' 12-yard sweep and Sam Wildfong's extra point with 4:51 remaining.

The Glads forced a three-and-out, and Eli Bigger stayed low to dive into the end zone on a 1-yard TD plunge with 40 seconds left.

St. Francis owns a 20-1 record against Grayling.

"Schools are different every year," Asher said. "People have good teams, people have bad years. You can't really determine how good a school is off of your record against them."

Grayling's only win in the series came in 2012, a 28-20 home victory also in Week Four.

In the next 10 meetings, the Gladiators took care of business to the tune of an average margin of victory of 31.1 points. TCSF won 42-13 last season.

Grayling pulled within one in the third quarter on Ethan Kucharek's 20-yard TD pass to Fletcher Quinlan.

"Coming out of the gates to put two (TDs) on the board, that's a good feeling," St. Francis head coach Josh Sellers said. "Then the second quarter kind of went sideways. Third quarter was about as bad a start as you can have to start a half, running three plays in the first six minutes. The kids stuck with it, really resilient. Really proud of them for that."

St. Francis defensive coordinator Mike Lesinski was ejected from the game with 9:06 remaining, but Sellers said that will be changed retroactively as the second flag thrown on the TCSF sideline was really on a Gladiators fan in the stands. Sellers was also flagged during a wild scene after Quinlan's one-handed grab that bounced off a St. Francis defender to set the Vikings up deep in TCSF territory. The three sideline penalties set the Vikings up at the 1, and Huspen scored two plays later to go up 22-15.

The Gladiators started an offensive line with 60 percent new starters as Luke Gorman, Joe Detloff and Garrett Gillespie stepped into the lineup, giving the Gladiators an entire line of juniors.

"We really found out this game who our first strings are," Asher said. "We're just going to expand off that and grow off that."

Harrison Shepherd started at quarterback for the second straight week after starting quarterback Tyler Endres broke his forearm in the Glads' Week Two loss at Lawton and is expected to miss the regular season, but could return for the playoffs.

Charlie Olivier led the Glads with 89 rushing yards on 12 carries, while Cam Sellers gained 60 on nine totes, and Biggar added 40 to match his jersey number.

Asher led the defense with seven tackles, a blocked punt and a fumble recovery. Biggar added eight stops, Shepherd six, and Sellers five.

Logan Malonen and Braiden Hall recovered fumbled exchanges to end two TCSF third-quarter drives, with the Vikings cashing in on one with a 20-yard Kucharek TD pass to Quinlan.

Eli Biggar gave TCSF a 15-0 lead, cruising through a big hole opened up by Garrett Gillespie and Ben DeCarolis. Sam Wildfong kicked the extra point 4:42 before halftime.

Olivier scored on a 2-yard run to close out a five-play drive off a short field from a Shepherd punt return.

Huspen finished off a seven-play drive with a 2-yard TD run, followed by a spectacular one-handed catch along the sideline by Daniel Hunter for the conversion to put SF's lead to 15-8 with 1:42 left in the opening half.

Kucharek finished with 224 passing yards, 121 of those to Quinlan.

Junior linebacker Braiden Tuck led the Viking defense with nine tackles and a fumble recovery, with Corbin Allen adding seven stops and an interception.

Grayling hosts Escanaba next Friday, before traveling the following week to Kingsley, which St. Francis visits next Friday.

"We have to push reset," Tunney said. "We can't feel sorry for ourselves."

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