Saturday night was the beginning of a three-week gauntlet for Marian’s football team.

Its first test was a potent Minersville squad led by star quarterback and Central Florida commit Dante Carr.

After a promising start from the Colts, Carr worked his magic and helped propel the Miners to a 38-7 victory.

Marian was faced with an extra challenge when its starting QB Greg Tirpak was unable to participate. The Colts’ top running back — Rory Dixon — was tasked with filling in for Tirpak’s vacancy, a decision that turned out positive for the home squad early.

On Minersville’s first two possessions, Dixon picked off two throws from Carr, resulting in a clock-winding 11-play drive following the first interception, and Tyler Price going 35 yards on the first play after the second pick to give the Colts a 7-0 lead just 1:05 into the second quarter.

With a great start by Marian, Miners’ head coach Justin Frantz knew his group would need to make some changes to their defensive approach.

“Dixon’s phenomenal on both sides of the ball,” Frantz said. “Maybe the ball was under thrown a little bit, but Dixon’s just that good of a player. He made two great breaks on it.

“So what we did is we just adjusted the routes. We still wanted to attack the outside, but we didn’t want him to be able to undercut everything from then on.”

The defensive switch was crucial as it created better opportunities for Carr to have success. And the results showed on Minersville’s next drive, with Carr leading the charge and hitting Matthew Dube with a 36-yard TD reception. That was followed by an unplanned two-point conversion after a bad snap on the PAT attempt.

Needing to respond, the tables were turned against the Colts, as Gavin Allen picked off a Dixon pass.

After both teams traded defensive stops, Carr proved why he’s one of the best high school quarterbacks in the state by running 55 yards to the end zone with only six seconds remaining on the second-quarter clock.

The Miners didn’t let up there, as they made the third quarter a nightmare for the Colts.

In just over two minutes — from 9:15 to 7:11 — the visitors scored three more times. First, it was Carr finding Paiten LaPoint from 55 yards out to set a new school record for the receiver with his 21st TD reception. Three plays later, with Marian now using freshman Cole Grochowski in at QB, Minersville forced a safety off a fumbled lateral.

And finally, it took only three plays on the Miners’ next possession for another tally. Carr ran for 28 yards on the first play, and Derek Derenzo finished the drive from three yards out.

The final nail in the coffin came in the fourth with the Miners draining the clock on 12 plays, including Carr finding Dube for 31 yards, and Allan capping off the 38-7 score from the three with 2:14 remaining.

While Marian didn’t make it easy on him, Carr still finished with 152 yards on the ground and 166 in the air, which put him over 5,000 passing yards in his high school career.

“I was proud of our effort, especially in the first half, but we knew we were never going to totally shut (Carr) down,” said Marian head coach Billy O’Gurek. “That stretch there in the third quarter was tough to withstand. But all in all, I was happy with our effort. We have a lot left to play for this season. So (we’ll) learn from it and then go ahead.”

“I thought our heads weren’t really in it, and Marian came out great and did exactly what I knew they were going to do,” said Frantz. “We just couldn’t stop it, so we had to refocus. We had to get dialed in.

“It took us about halfway through the second quarter to start moving the way we thought we should be. And once we got these kids focused in and dialed in, I was happy with the performance.

NOT ANY EASIER … Marian continues its stretch of powerhouse opponents as it travels to Schuylkill Haven on Friday. “We know what we have in front of us,” said O’Gurek about his team’s next game. “We have to have a good week of practice. I think we found some things out in our running game here. So when we get back on the practice field, we’ll figure out how to handle Haven.” After the Hurricanes, the Colts come home the following week to face Williams Valley.

Minersville 38, Marian 7

Minersville 0 15 16 7 - 38

Marian 0 7 0 0 - 7

Ma - Price 35 run (Bushati kick)

Mi - Dube 36 pass from Carr (Derenzo pass from Bowers)

Mi - Carr 55 run (Bowers kick)

Mi - LaPoint 55 pass from Carr (Bowers kick)

Mi - Safety on lateral rolled out of end zone

Mi - Derenzo 3 run (Bowers kick)

Mi - Allan 3 run (Bowers kick)

Records: Minersville (4-2); Marian (5-1).