Green Dukes Suffer Second Straight Shutout in 2-0 Loss vs. Marshall

The Duqueswood University Green Dukes fell to the Marshall Thundering Herd 2-0 in the teams’ second straight NCBB Season 44 shutout coupled with a host of costly injuries. The Herd chaos chosen squad got touchdowns from sophomore beastmen Charles Montgomery and Andre Sam, out-blocking Duqueswood 22 – 10, to cause 4 casualties, including the death of senior lineman Kioric Rainwalker (creative foliage). Rainwalker’s death marks the season’s third fatality for the Green Dukes, bringing their death-to-win ratio to 3:1, which could once again draw the ire of the university’s Board of Elders.


Sam runs for the Herd’s first TD as fallen Green Dukes litter the field behind him

“Look, I’m not an analytics guy, OK?” said Duqueswood Coach Gerric Smithson on the troubling death-to-win ratio after the game. “I mean, yeah, I’m familiar with the Mickon Loowis’s book, Bloody Ball, and I know ratios, EPAs, and CPOEs or whatever are all the latest fashion with coaches these days. But there’s only one number I care about, and that’s wins. And, yeah, OK, I guess that number’s not very good for us right now either. But you get my point.”

Marshall opened the scoring on a long, punishing run by Sam, who led all rushers with 28 yards on the day. The shifty beastman never even needed to use his elf-like moves on the run as the team’s chosen blockers, beastmen, and standout sophomore minotaur Owen Porter slowly carved a path through the elven defense like a hot horn through tallow. By the time Sam crossed the goal line, 7 Green Dukes had been removed from the pitch.

“Look, it always comes back to basics with these fellas,” said Coach Smithson. “It’s tough to stop the ball if you’re not on the field. Now if we could figure out a way to make tackles from the sideline and the KO box, well, we’d really have something there.”

Despite being down players, Duqueswood did manage to mount a scoring threat early in the second half, when junior thrower Bryden Branch (quantitative root-conomics) used an unorthodox passing play heretofore only seen among nobles. Nearing midfield along the northern sideline, Branch flicked the ball forward to sophomore catcher Scootyr Spinleaf (undelcared). However, rather than coming to a stop to make the pass, as nearly all throwers do, Branch actually passed the ball while running and remarkably continued to run after the throw so that he could move into position to try to keep Sam and Porter from chasing Spinleaf down.


Branch amazingly runs to mark a beastman after making a pass

“It’s a highly complicated maneuver,” said Branch, who developed the skill while working with his own private personal trainer, Randal Domskil (who goes by "Rand" for short). “We call it … ‘running pass’ because you’re both passing and then running. It’s really complicated … ” Branch then went onto explain the skill for five more minutes, while all of the scribes at the press conference simply nodded and said, “we get it” several times.

Coach Smithson, however, clarified that Branch won’t be working with this private trainer anymore. “Next thing you know, he’s going to teach the kid the fumblerooskie,” said Smithson. “Yeah, no thanks.”

Yet Branch’s unorthodox “running pass” did look likely to pay off, as Spinleaf had nothing but daylight in front of him, and all of the nearby Herd tacklers were now engaged by Green Dukes. In a brilliant maneuver, however, Herd blockers Abraham Beauplan and Koby Cumberlander battered elven lineman Foren Longweed (mystical fauna studies) into their own beastman Toby Payne. This pushed Payne closer to Duqueswood wardancer Bixtyr Brightwing, who was keeping beastman Charles Montgomery from making the play. Payne then pushed Brightwing back from Montogmery, and the freed beastman charged at Spinleaf, goring him from behind with one of his horns, and freeing the ball as well as a copious amount of blood from the catcher.


Spinleaf streaks down the sideline moments before being gored from behind by Montgomery

“Yeah, I believe they call that maneuver a ‘chain block,’ ” said Branch after the game. “I guess that’s a little more useful than the whole running pass thing. But still, that running pass was pretty good, right? You know, that whole me passing, and then me running. It was pretty good. Pretty, pretty, pretty good.”

Sam quickly gathered the loose ball and slowly moved up field, with Herd blockers injuring or knocking out all but 3 Duqueswood players. Rather than score himself, Sam handed the ball to Montgomery, giving him the touchdown honors since it was his defensive play that sealed the game.

The loss dropped the Green Dukes to 1-2-1 on the season, as they prepare to face the U of M Wolverines in their next game. Following the game, Coach Smithson said the university still had no details to offer on plans for Rainwalker’s return-to-the-forest ceremony.

“Yeah, the AD is telling me we’re already way over our return-to-the-forest-ceremony budget for the year, so right now the university doesn’t have any solid plans,” he said. “Kioric meant a lot to this team though, so if I got to drag him out to the wife’s garden and plant his corpse under her poinsettias myself, I’ll make it happen.”