NEW YORK – The Marist football team dropped its season opener at Columbia, 37-14 on Saturday afternoon at Robert K. Kraft Field at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium.
Dwayne Menders ran a punt back 82 yards for a touchdown at the 11:36 mark of the first quarter for the first score of the game.
On the ensuing kickoff, Kyle Fleitman forced a fumble that Teddy Wright recovered at the Columbia 42. On the next play, Austin Day hit Scott Scherzer for a 42-yard touchdown pass down the sideline, which extended the Red Foxes’ lead to 14-0 at the 11:19 mark.
Gabriel Hollingsworth’s 15-yard touchdown run with 2:13 left in the first quarter started a run of 37 unanswered points for the Lions.
Columbia scored 17 points in the second quarter, which all came in a span of 7:15.
Ernest Robinson’s second touchdown of the day, a 17-yard run, put Columbia up 31-14 early in the third quarter.
Alex Felkins added a pair of field goals – one in the third quarter, and one in the final period – to close out the scoring.
“Fantastic beginning for our football team,” Marist head coach Jim Parady said. “We got a big play on special teams, we hit a big vertical, and had a lot of momentum going on. After that, we couldn’t get things going on the offense to sustain any drives, we put our defense out there for a long time, and Columbia wore us down on that side.”
Marist plays its home opener on Saturday, Sept. 25 against Bryant. Kickoff is set for 6 p.m. It will be the Red Foxes’ first night game at Tenney Stadium since 2017.
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