WORTHINGTON -- For Worthington's football team, the gauntlet continues.
The Trojans will cap a brutal three-game stretch tonight when they travel to face undefeated Marshall (5-0, 4-0), which has lost just two conference games in the past four years.
After its 48-7 victory at Windom last week, Marshall received a number of votes in the Class 4A rankings and seemingly is on the brink of breaking into the top 10.
The Trojans aren't fazed.
Worthington enters tonight's Southwest Conference matchup having faced three teams this season currently ranked in the top 10, including back-to-back matchups against top-ranked teams. The Trojans are coming off a 28-6 homecoming loss to Luverne, the No.1-ranked team in Class 2A. A week earlier, Worthington fell to Brandon Valley, the No. 1-ranked 11A team in South Dakota.
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The Trojans also lost to Fairmont, which currently is ranked No. 10 in Class 3A, in their season-opener.
"We've hung with them, but we just haven't come through in the end," Worthington quarterback Kyle Vaske said. "We showed that we can hang with them, now we just have to show we can actually come through with it."
In each of their past two games, against Luverne and Brandon Valley, the Trojans appeared to be on the verge of possibly pulling off colossal upsets.
Worthington stormed back from a 21-0 hole at Brandon Valley and cut the deficit to six points with less than two minutes remaining until halftime. But the Lynx responded, driving down the field and scoring a touchdown with 40 seconds remaining in the half.
The Trojans put up 342 yards of total offense in their 45-21 loss, but two turnovers inside Brandon Valley's 10-yard line proved costly.
Worthington's red zone woes continued against the Cardinals last week.
The Trojans drove into Luverne territory five times and made four trips into the red zone. But penalties, lack of execution and an interception near the goal line resulted in just one scoring drive.
Worthington still was in the game, trailing 14-6 midway through the fourth quarter, but the Cardinals pulled away late and earned a 28-6 victory in a contest that was much closer than the final score indicated.
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"We didn't score because we didn't execute," Worthington coach Dennis Hale said. "I don't know if there's a way of fixing it; I just think the red-zone stuff is just kind of good TV talk. Obviously, we try to score on every drive, and, if you get stopped at midfield, you feel pretty bad, too.
"Maybe we called a lousy play; maybe we had lousy execution; maybe we had a penalty -- there are a lot of things that lead up to that. I don't know if it's been a problem, necessarily, all year, but Luverne is a very good team. The field shortens up down there, so they weren't as spread out, and we weren't able to punch it in."
Worthington likely won't be able to afford many failed red-zone opportunities tonight.
The Tigers' high-powered offense is averaging a little more than 37 points per game, and their defense is allowing just an average of 11 points. Senior running back Trey Welch has rushed for five touchdowns and 596 yards on just 56 carries -- an average of 10.6 yards per rush. Junior quarterback Andrew Larsen, a first-year starter, has passed for six touchdowns and 486 yards on 25-for-57 passing. Larsen's favorite target, senior wide receiver Brent Rysdahl, has four touchdowns and is averaging 25.3 yards per reception.
The Tigers have outscored Worthington 65-0 in the teams' past two meetings.
"They've won about five straight against us, and we had won 10 straight before then," Hale said. "It always has been a big rivalry. We were, at one time, the only two big schools (in the conference). We've dropped down since then, but that Marshall game has always been a big game."
It gets even bigger: Worthington, which was Brandon Valley's homecoming opponent, will be Marshall's homecoming opponent tonight.
"We've had three homecoming games in a row now; we're getting pretty used to it," Vaske laughed. "We just have to go in there and prove what we can do. We got our homecoming ruined last week. Hopefully we can return the favor."
