By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

STAYTON, Ore.– The last two weeks have shown a lot of challenges for the Stayton football team as they defeated Junction City last week before facing another buzzsaw in Marist this week.  Suffering a tough 35-7 defeat to the 4A State Runner-Up in the Spartans on the heels of their 35-33 win over the Tigers last week.

“It’s going to help us out as a team, we’ve had good practices this week, we jsut didn’t come to play.  (Marist) is a really good team, credit to them, we just got punched in the mouth.  I think next week we’re going to come out hungrier than ever,” Stayton’s Jace Aguilar said.

Aguilar scored the Eagles lone touchdown of the game, coming in the closing seconds of the game on a 61-yard reception from Cody Leming.  It was part of about four or five solid drives that Stayton pieced together offensively in this game.

With Marist, you have to be near-perfect as they don’t give you much.  Something that has made them into a strong program with a strong tradition as they took advantage of the little miscues that the Eagles gave them.  Drew Prickel had four rushing touchdowns as he and Parker Nelson led the offensive attack with their passing game working efficiently.  

Leming had a solid outing throwing, completing 14-of-22 passes, Aguilar picking up 94 yards on five receptions while Ty Borde contributed 29 yards on six receptions.  Borde, who also played linebacker in Friday’s game,also rushed the ball seven times for 30 yards.

“I thought we did a pretty good job on a couple of plays, obviously we still have a lot to improve on.  Going forward it was good to know that we can do it,” Borde starts.  “We definitely have to come out (next week) with a sense of intensity in practice next week and be ready to play.  We definitely have to play better than we did this week.  No matter what, we have to play better and I think we can do it.Our league is very competitive and we’re battling and trying to be in the Top 2 or 3 teams, so we got to do our best.”

Stayton heads to Philomath on Friday before returning home on October 7 against North Bend.  Both games are at 7pm

Photos By Jeremy McDonald