Mav football harvests the Golden Bears, 46-13
The football team rolls over Concordia-St. Paul after jumping out to a 46-6 lead at halftime.
Kevin Korbel
Sports Editor
The #1 team in D-II football didn’t fail to live up to expectations last Saturday for the Harvest Bowl, as the Mavericks took the Concordia-St. Paul Golden Bears to the woodshed, defeating the team, 46-13, in front of a home crowd at Blakeslee Stadium, moving the team to 3-0 on the season.
With the win, the Mavericks stand atop all alone at the #1 spot in the NSIC south division standings, standing in front of teams like Augustana, Sioux Falls, and Winona State.
Right out of the gate, the Mavericks had the Bears on their heels, as sophomore tailback Justin Taormina took a handoff and ran thunderously 83-yards to the house on the Mavericks’ first drive of the game to make the score 7-0.
Later on in the quarter, the team would get on the board again on their next possession, with junior quarterback Ryan Schlichte running into the end zone from the goal-line, putting the Mavericks up on the Bears, 14-0.
It looked like early on that Concordia-St. Paul would be competitive in this game, as they got on the scoreboard on the next possession of the game when senior quarterback Dom McKinzy threw a 16-yard touchdown pass to junior wide out MJ Williams, cutting the lead to 14-6, after Bears kicker Jonas Schenderlein had the PAT attempt blocked on the following play.
From that point on, it was all Mavericks once the game went to the 2nd quarter.
Midway through the 2nd quarter, the Mavericks were marching down the field on offense in opponent’s territory when sophomore quarterback JD Ekowa hit junior wide-out Shane Zylstra on a touchdown but was negated after a holding penalty on offense drove the team back 10 yards to the Concordia 27-yard line.
The following play, Ekowa hit freshman wide-out Jalen Sample on a 27-yard touchdown connection to put the Mavs up, 21-6, over the Bears.
Ekowa would then finally get Zylstra in the end zone later on in the quarter when he hit him on a 53-yard connection to put the team up, 28-6.
The defense did nothing but manhandle the Bears the rest of the ball-game, getting two safeties during the quarter, something that’s pretty rare to do.
The offense would score two more touchdowns during the 2nd quarter with touchdown runs from Schlichte and junior tailback Nate Gunn reaching the end zone.
The team during the second quarter scored a total of 32 points, putting the team up, 46-6, at halftime.
During the second half of the game, the Mavs sat comfortably the rest of the game, putting the second team out for the home crowd the rest of the game, with the only notable tick on the scoreboard being a late 4th quarter touchdown quarter to make the final score, 46-13, to win the Harvest Bowl once again.
On the year, the Mavericks have outscored their opponents 133-62 in the three games they’ve played this season, averaging 44.3 points per game this season.
The team’s next game will be its biggest challenge so far on the season, facing Winona State this Saturday at 1 p.m. in Winona, MN. Tune in to 1230 THE FAN to listen to the game.
Feature photo by Mansoor Ahmad/MSU Reporter.