|
| Tyler Holte got the Warhawks' scoring started with a second-quarter touchdown. Photo for UW-Whitewater athletics by Joey Gardner, Fotojoe Photography |
UW-Whitewater went east and came away with a big win, the defending champs got back on the field in a big way, Gustavus Adolphus downed No. 15 Wartburg and Ithaca defeated No. 20 Brockport in Division III football action among teams in the D3football.com Top 25.
Max Meylor threw four touchdown passes and the Warhawks scored 17 consecutive points in a 10-minute span of the third and fourth quarters as Whitewater pulled away for a 31-14 win. No. 3 UW-Whitewater held the ball for more than 33 minutes to limit the Sea Gulls' potent triple-option offensive attack. The Warhawk defense held No. 8 Salisbury to 2-of-10 on third down and registered four sacks, as the Sea Gulls managed just 122 rushing yards. Ryan Wisniewski caught five passes for 129 yards and two touchdowns. Mackenzie Balanganayi posted five tackles, including one sack, and forced a fumble.
Michael Veldman threw four touchdown passes and the Gustavus Adolphus defense, which gave up 58 points to Buena Vista in Week 1, kept Wartburg in check as the Gusties defeated the No. 15 Knights 27-18. Wartburg answered Gustavus' first touchdown with a 19-yard field goal, then Jace Moore hit two-way star Jojo McNair with a 9-yard touchdown pass on the last snap of the first half to give the Knights a 10-7 going into the locker room. Veldman hit on a big pass play for a 77-yard TD to Matthew Kipper, then later found Dalton Thelen over the middle for a 59-yard score to make it 21-10 Gustavus. Moore found McNair for a second touchdown on the second play of the fourth quarter, but the Gustavus defense held on two fourth down attempts and Andrey Nelson intercepted Moore in the red zone to salt away the victory.
Ithaca registered six takeaways and the Bombers improved to 2-0 with a 23-8 win at No. 20 Brockport. Ithaca managed only 242 yards of total offense and just 19 yards on the ground, but the Bomber defense forced three turnovers in the final 12 minutes to snuff out any comeback attempt. Miles Haynes had a pick-six to help extend a 10-8 halftime lead and Brockport never scored again.
No. 4 North Central took the field for the first time since wining the Division III football national title in 2019, and the Cardinals made the most of it, cruising past No. 21 Aurora by a 64-7 score. North Central held Gavin Zimbelman to 136 yards passing, while Ethan Greenfield ran for 137 yards and three touchdowns. Luke Lehnen, the Cardinals' starting quarterback, completed 13 of 24 passes for 264 yards and three touchdowns. Lehnen is a freshman but was on campus in 2020-21 and was a D3baseball.com second-team All-Central Region selection as an outfielder for the Cardinals.
No. 10 Delaware Valley held Montclair State to 29 yards and, after a sluggish start on offense, rolled to a 26-2 victory. The Aggies' defense yielded just three first downs on 58 plays with All-American Mike Nobile notching three tackles for loss. Dequan Bohannan threw for two touchdowns and ran for a third for DelVal. The teams combined for just four third-down conversions in 33 attempts, and Montclair had zero first downs after the first quarter.
The No. 11 and No. 12 teams in the poll each defeated NCAA Division II teams on Saturday. For UW-Oshkosh, it was a 28-10 win at Northern Michigan. The Titans defense limited NMU to nine first downs and 193 yards of total offense. Kobe Berghammer threw for three touchdowns in the victory. And for Linfield, the win was at home against Simon Fraser by a 56-20 score. Wyatt Smith threw for 307 yards and four touchdowns in the win, which was Linfield's first game since 2019.
For nearly 25 minutes, the only Centennial Conference game on Saturday afternoon featuring teams that won their season opener lived up to the advance billing as Johns Hopkins and Ursinus were deadlocked at 14. Six minutes before halftime, the teams had combined for three touchdown drives that covered 75 or more yards and another that was set up by a failed fake punt attempt. By the time the game reached intermission, things had changed dramatically as the host Blue Jays scored four touchdowns in the final 5:10 of the opening half to turn the 14-14 tie into a 42-14 lead in what eventually became a 49-21 Johns Hopkins victory at Homewood Field.
Bethel scored 21 points in the fourth quarter to make its season debut in style as the No. 17 Royals defeated UW-Platteville 28-7. The game was the first played on Bethel's new turf. Only 24 schools, or about 10% of Division III, play on grass. Jaran Roste was an efficient 17-for-21 passing for 270 yards and a touchdown and ran for two touchdowns as well.