Marine City head coach Daryn Letson left nothing in the bag.

He started the Mariners’ 38-28 upset win over Michigan Collegiate on Saturday with an onside kick, which Marine City recovered. They broke a fake punt-turned-reverse on long fourth downs, and ran the ball until they didn’t have to anymore in Saturday, Nov. 9’s district championship game at Warren Lincoln HS.

“You gotta empty the tank,” Letson said. “If you win, you refill the tank and you go back at it and that’s what we did, and we’ll be ready to go next week again.”

The Mariners’ onside kick to start the game was recovered and led to a 38-yard passing touchdown from quarterback Lyncoln Osterland to Cooper Letson to give them a fast lead.

Michigan Collegiate bounced back with a 16-yard touchdown run by Patrick Baker and a 2-point conversion by quarterback Caleb Moore — but it ended up being their only possession of the first quarter.

The Cougars also only had one possession in the third quarter and ended up with just six total.

That, of course, was by design.

“I just thought that if we were going to win the game, we were going to have to control the clock,” Letson said. “I mean, that’s an explosive team over there, tons of athletes, tons of speed. We couldn’t get in a race with them. We needed to control the clock, control possessions, and just keep cranking out yards a little at a time.”

Marine City answered by going on a 12-play scoring drive, which took over six full minutes off the clock. It was one of three scoring drives that used over 10 plays, helping Marine City have nearly 33 minutes of ball control compared to Michigan Collegiate’s 15 minutes.

Those possessions could have been even longer had Cougar head coach John Guth decided to kick it deep on their kickoffs — instead, he opted for shorter onside kicks to keep the ball away from Marine City’s infamous “Starburst” formation and, in theory, give the Cougars more chances to score.

The Cougars didn’t recover any of the kicks, the Mariners never started a drive further back than their own 35 yard line and all but one of their possessions ended in points, not counting their end-of-game kneels.“We felt we had a great game plan for it,” said Michigan Collegiate head coach John Guth. “Try to onside and take their Starburst away from them and give them half the field. And if they did score, we knew we were explosive enough to go score. … I felt we had a great game plan. It’s all about execution and trying to get the job done. And that’s a great program over there.”

Marine City’s Paul Muscat ended the first quarter with a 9-yard touchdown run — his first of eventually four in the game. He also punched in runs of 15, 1 and 1 yards plus a 2-point conversion run.

He finished with 25 carries for 132 yards, and the Mariners ended with 278 rushing yards altogether.

“You saw there in the first half, yards were tough to come by,” Letson said. “I mean, we were only getting one, maybe two, maybe three, or whatever. But the point is, in the second half, you could also see how it started to wear on them, and we turned those plays into five, 10, 15 yard chunk plays. And I firmly believe that’s how you win in November.”

Michigan Collegiate scored on four of their six drives; a Patrick Baker 17-yard touchdown, a Caleb Moore 29-yard pass to Damarion Johnson, a Moore 5-yard run and a Moore 8-yard run.

One of their fruitless drives — which ended near the end of the first half with a punt — had a touchdown pass from Caleb Moore to Jacob Moore called back due to illegal procedure, which would have put them up at least 20-13.

Marine City took the ball back down the field to kick a field goal and go up 16-14 at halftime.

That wasn’t the only time Collegiate beat themselves on a play — they were called for nine penalties compared to Marine City’s three and had several drops.

“We had such a talented team at the end of the day,” Guth said.

“Sometimes you beat yourselves and you just didn’t have (it) that game. And hats off to them (Marine City). Great program.”

Caleb Moore had a big game despite the loss, completing 55.6% of his passes for 229 yards plus 68 rushing yards and three total touchdowns.

It ends the Cougars’ season with a 9-2 record, ending their nine-game winning streak and the prep careers of several Michigan Collegiate lifers.

“They’ve been here for that whole duration of education, and they’ve been with us this whole time, and we have multiple kids in this senior class that have gone through that and been with us that long,” Guth said. “To coach them from seeing them in our elementary and to see them grow and to continue to be with us in the sixth, seventh and eighth grade, and then getting to the high school, JV and varsity level, it’s to see those kids develop. And that’s what it’s about.

“Seeing them grow as individuals, watching them develop — that’s my favorite thing. That’s why I do it, because I love the process. I love doing everything for them to help them get to another level, to get them to be great in life. That’s why I do it, just to see them grow. It’s this awesome thing to see. Some of them got scholarships, and they’re going to go on and play football after high school and represent Michigan Collegiate like they’re supposed to.”

Marine City, also 9-2, will look to secure a regional championship next week in the Division 6 quarterfinals against Detroit Central at East China Stadium. The Trailblazers defeated fellow city schools Detroit Edison and Detroit Old Redford to get to this point.

“I think it’s awesome,” Letson said. “Our stadium is a great environment. And they (our team) get to do that again next Friday and then we’ll see what happens.”