North Bend’s Shane Halford has the ball stripped away by Chris Gill, of Marshfield, in the first half Friday. World Photo by Lou Sennick.

NORTH BEND — For three quarters of football, it looked like Marshfield’s shot at a 19th straight win over North Bend in the Civil War might face a serious test.

The Pirates and Bulldogs went into halftime tied at six apiece in front of an estimated 2,300 fans at Vic Adams Field Friday night after a sloppy two quarters that involved six turnovers — four for Marshfield and two for North Bend.

But Marshfield owned the final 15 minutes, capitalizing on costly mistakes by the Bulldogs and outscoring North Bend 25-0, including 19 points in the fourth, en route to a 31-9 victory.

Make it 19 in a row for the Pirates.

“This feels great. You got to beat the ’Dawgs,” said Marshfield quarterback Kyle Tedder, who went 7-for-12 for 98 yards passing and threw for two touchdowns. “We had a lot of jitters early, though. It took us a while to settle in and just start playing.”

Friday night’s game certainly won’t go down in the annals as one of the prettiest Civil Wars in the 128-game history of the rivalry. Marshfield fumbled the ball four times and lost possession on all four. North Bend put the ball on the ground five times, giving up possession on three.

Two interceptions from the Pirates and another from the Bulldogs put the turnouver count at an even 10 for the night, and the teams combined for 15 penalties for 101 yards.

The difference was that Marshfield was able to put together some offense — 240 yards to North Bend’s 67 — and the Bulldogs paid more dearly for their mistakes.

“We killed ourselves. Fumbles. Way too many fumbles,” said North Bend lineman Pete Chaney. “We shot ourselves in the foot.”

The game’s first play was a good indication of how the night would go.

North Bend’s Cameron Seiger mishandled a pitch from quarterback Tyler Goode and fumbled, with the Pirates’ Kyle Kauffman recovering on the Bulldogs’ 12 yard line.

Marshfield was quick to capitalize, as Tedder hit Jordan Shepherd in stride for a 12-yard touchdown grab to go up by six in the opening seconds of the matchup.

“I was going crazy,” said Shepherd, who said he expected the Pirates were in for a big night after the quick score.

“They stood their ground. They didn’t give up. We had a little gut check, but we pulled through.”

After the first score, the Pirates and Bulldogs proceeded to play a game of hot-potato, quickly giving the ball back and forth to each other as Goode was intercepted by Marshfield’s Travis Bettin and then Tedder’s next pass was picked off by Dalton Iveans.

Marshfield threatened again late in the first, driving to the 2-yard line before Kyle Brown fumbled and Iveans recovered for North Bend. After the Bulldogs punted, Tedder then threw an interception to Skyler Walton.

The squads practiced their punting for most of the second quarter, getting nothing out of two possessions apiece.

But late in the second, Tedder fumbled and North Bend’s Eric Sanne fell on it, giving the Bulldogs possession at the Marshfield 31 yard line.

The Bulldogs got very little out of several running plays, facing a fourth down with 7 yards to go. But then Goode hit a streaking Seth Johnson, who turned and dove into the end zone — after stepping out of bounds at the 1-yard line.

A personal foul penalty moved the ball even closer, and on the next play Goode punched into the end zone on a quarterback keeper to tie the game at 6-6 going into halftime.

North Bend went into the locker room feeling pretty good about life.

“At halftime I was pumped. I thought we had it,” said Bulldog running back Shane Halford.

The third quarter began as a driving mist settled over the field, making things slippery.

Marshfield quickly turned the wet ball over on a bobbled snap, as North Bend’s Brandon Huber recovered on the Pirates’ 21 yard line.

North Bend could only move it to the 10-yard line, though, settling for a 27-yard Kyle Rose field goal to take the Bulldogs’ only lead of the game at 9-6.

It was all Pirates from that point on.

“We had the turnovers; they had the momentum,”Shepherd said. “We came out and made some big plays. Everything started clicking.”

After Seiger fumbled and Pirate lineman Jesse Comstock recoverd on the Marshfield 15, the Pirates manufactured an 85-yard scoring drive, most of which came on a 48-yard toss from Tedder to a wide-open Shane Daly.

This set up a 19-yard reverse touchdown run for Levi Meline, who rounded the line and was staring at ten yards of open space. He split two defenders at the goal line to put Marshfield back on top 12-9.

“As soon as I got the ball, I just saw two good blocks (near the goal line) and I could drive right between them,” said Meline. “That gave us the momentum to push through.”

In the fourth quarter, things got away from North Bend and Marshfield ran away with the game. On a fourth-and-22 a deep snap sailed a good five feet over the head of punter Halford and the Bulldogs fell on it at their own 15.

On the first play, Tedder rolled out and took the ball nearly to the goal line before being forced out by two defenders. He then took the ball the final yard for the touchdown to make the score 19-9 with the extra point.

North Bend fumbled to Marshfield once again on its next possession, which gave the Pirates the ball on the Bulldogs’ 15. That set up a 9-yard touchdown pass, again from Tedder to Shepherd, to put the count at 25-9.

North Bend then had to punt into the wind, giving Marshfield the ball on the Bulldogs’ 26. Sophomore quarterback Dallas Milburn scored the Pirates’ final touchdown with 11 seconds remaining as both teams had pulled most of their starters to set the final score at 31-9.

“We just came in in the second half and got it done,” said Tedder. “This was great. But we’ve got nine more weeks to go.”

Bulldog Seiger led all rushers with 45 yards on 20 carries. Meline did the best on the ground for Marshfield with 37 yards on three carries, including two big gains on reverses.

Daley had three catches for the Pirates, racking up 72 yards.

The Marshfield players were thrilled to again beat their cross-town rivals. But coach Kent Wigle wasn’t so happy.

“We played very poorly. We didn’t take care of the ball,” he said afterward. “It was a cheap lesson, because we still won. You’ve got to credit our defense. They hung in there and got it done even though we turned the ball over.”

First-year Bulldog coach Rick Taylor also found a defensive silver lining in the messy game.

“Our defense looked really good today. Our offense is a slower go,” Taylor said of the combination wing-T-triple option he’s implementing. “I’m incredibly proud of these kids though. It’s tough to come out and play a great team like (Marshfield) in the first game of the season.”

Everyone in the Bulldog locker room knew the team would have to execute better for the rest of the season, though.

“We definitely made some mistakes we know we don’t have to make,” said Goode. “But everyone on our team are really good friends. This is a great group of guys. We’ll bounce back and have a great season.”

— Sports Editor JohnGunther contributed to this story.