The Marion Indians coasted to a District 6 victory at home Friday night as they defeated Clear Creek Amana, 27-0, on Senior Night.

The win clinched a tie for the district title for the Indians (7-1, 5-0). Marion plays at DeWitt Central (5-3, 4-1) next Friday in the regular season finale. If the Indians lose and Solon loses to Benton, DeWitt Central earns the district's top seed in the playoffs. A loss that results in a three-way tie will come down to a tiebreaker based on the 13-point system.

Of course, if Marion beats the Sabers, it wins the district outright, the No. 1 seed and home games in the first two rounds of the playoffs.

Marion’s offensive and defensive lines dominated Friday's game. The defensive line held the Clippers (4-4, 2-3) to just 46 rushing yards on 25 carries, while the offensive line paved the way to 368 yards rushing.

Injured tailback Trev Biery (sprained foot) carried the ball only nine times for 84 yards but managed to rack up two touchdowns in the first half.

Colton Mowry led all rushers, picking up 123 yards on 21 carries and Andrew Davis ran 15 times for 101 yards and a touchdown. All three rushing touchdowns were put on the board in the first half.

“That was really exciting and the line blocked so well that you couldn’t miss the holes,” said Mowry. “On our right side, they just couldn’t stop us. We out-physicalled them.”

Davis said the Indians did not plan to use Biery much in the game.

“We knew Trev (Biery) was injured and we weren’t going to use him a lot, so I got the ball a lot more and took advantage of the gaping holes that our offensive line opened up for us,” said Davis.

“We knew we didn’t want to have a letdown and we needed to keep things rolling going into an important game next week, so we just kept working.”

“It was next-man-in tonight,” said Biery. “I got the second half off tonight and I’ll be ready to go next week against DeWitt Central.”

The offense managed to put up only one touchdown in the second half on a 10-yard pass from Trevor Hardman to Quinn Cannoy. Hardman connected on 5 of 12 passes for 89 yards.

Penalties and turnovers interfered with execution throughout the second half.

Defensively, Marion limited the Clippers to 46 yards rushing and 63 yards passing. The Clippers’ Tanner Bandy came into the game leading District 6 with 34 catches for 462 yards and four touchdowns.Marion’s defense held him to one catch for four yards.

“We turned the ball over twice and our defense still shut them out,” said Marion Coach Tony Perkins. “Our defense was excellent tonight.

"They did a great job of cutting off their spread offense by playing great angles. We have two classes that are really close and really work well together and are marked by great senior leadership.
The chemistry is reflected in our success.”

The Indians gave Perkins his 98th win, tying him with Dave Messerli for second on the coaches list for all-time wins in Marion history. The legendary Les Hipple is first with 105 wins.

Perkins said his team will need to be ready to play DeWitt Central.

“DeWitt is a big and physical team so we need to fix our mistakes from tonight to be prepared for a tough game next week,” said Perkins.

MARION 27, CLEAR CREEK AMANA 0

CCA      Marion

First downs         7        23
Rushing             25-46    62-368
Passing             9-21-0   5-12-0
Passing yards       63       89
Punts               8-33.1   3-33.2
Fumbles/Lost        0-0      3-2
Penalties           4-34     7-51

Clear Creek Amana       0   0   0   0 -  0
Marion                    6   15  6   0 -  27

SCORING PLAYS

M – Trev Biery 2 run (pass failed)
M – Biery 24 run (Andrew Davis run)
M – Davis 15 run (Dalton Ott kick)
M – Quinn Cannoy 10 pass from Trevor Hardman (kick blocked)

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING
CLEAR CREEK AMANA: Jonathon Nzombo 11-30, Konrad Moore 12-8, Zach Anderson 1-3, Tanner Bandy 1-4.
MARION: Trev Biery 9-84, Colton Mowry 21-123, Andrew Davis 15-101, Trevor Hardman 3-4, Ethan Herren 1-3, Tyler Gunderson 5-43, Nick Connolly 3-8.

PASSING
CLEAR CREEK AMANA: Konrad Moore 9-21-0, 63 yards.
MARION: Trevor Hardman 5-12-0, 91 yards.

RECEIVING
CLEAR CREEK AMANA: Andrew Beckler 3-41, Jonathon Nzombo 3-8, Zach Anderson 2-11, Tanner Bandy 1-3.
MARION: Ethan Herren 2-61, Quinn Cannoy 2-25, Brandon Hornback 1-5.