Top 25: CMU streak snapped; Alma stays hot

Sep 23, 2023

Grove City junior safety Shay Aitken had a sack and an interception Saturday night in the Wolverines' 21-14 win over No. 14 Carnegie Mellon. Aitken made his first collegiate start Saturday night.
Grove City athletics photo by John Hake

Alma continued its hot start to the season, Carnegie Mellon lost a PAC game for the first time since 2021, Delaware Valley said nay to the naysayers, St. John's had enough offense and Mount Union had plenty in action among teams in the D3football.com Top 25 poll.

Carter St. John was tough to stop, or even slow down, as No. 20 Alma defeated Wittenberg, 48-28. St. John completed 88% of his passes -- 22 out of 25 -- and threw for four touchdowns while running for another in the victory. St. John accounted for 374 yards of total offense. Evan Eastmn had two interceptions and two tackles for loss for the Scots, while Odin Soffredine had two tackles for loss among his 10 total tackles as well. Alma improved to 4-0, winning for the 15th time in the past 16 games.

Carnegie Mellon saw its 18-game Presidents' Athletic Conference winning streak snapped, as Grove City jumped out to a 21-0 lead and held on to defeat the No. 14 Tartans, 21-14. Logan Pfeuffer ran for two touchdowns and threw for a third for the Wolverines (4-0). Pfeuffer completed 16 of 30 passes for 229 yards and ran for 27. Carnegie Mellon followed Grove City's third drive with a 15-play, 74-yard drive of its own to get on the board, and CMU scored again with 1:15 to play, but could not cover the onside kick and did not get the ball back until there were just seven seconds left.

Rumors of the demise of Delaware Valley's MAC winning streak turned out to be greatly exaggerated. In a meeting of MAC title hopefuls, No. 25 Delaware Valley held King's to minus-4 yards rushing in the first half and four turnovers in the second, and the Aggies shut out the Monarchs, 28-0. Trailing 14-0 early in the fourth quarter, King's pushed inside the Aggies' 20 but the Monarchs were turned aside when DelVal linebacker Anthony Puntillilo pounced on the Monarchs' fumble. The DelVal defense put the game away on the next possession when Puntillilo sacked King's quarterback Russell Minor-Shaw and knocked the ball loose, allowing Darius Nichols to scoop it up and return it 35 yards for the score. The Aggies posted five sacks in addition to the turnovers.

With a week off to adjust from the Week 2 loss to UW-Whitewater, No. 8 St. John's came out slowly, but scored the last 27 points of the game to defeat No. 19 Bethel 27-7. The Royals struck first on their opening possession of the second half. After Isaac Call picked off Aaron Syverson deep in Bethel territory and returned it all the way to the SJU 37, Bethel found itself in the end zone six plays later. Alex Call hit Joey Kidder for a big 19-yard gain on fourth-and-2, Aaron Ellingson ran for 28 yards from the 29, and Alex Call called his own number for a 1-yard TD run. The Johnnies took the lead on a Conor Murphy field goal in the closing moments of the first half, and Syverson threw two touchdown passes to put it away in the second half.

Susquehanna held the ball for 37 minutes, 56 seconds, and got past Western New England 26-18. The No. 15 River Hawks fought through the rain which was omnipresent in the Middle Atlantic with a ground game electrified by Tommy Grabowski's two touchdowns, three interceptions and one fumble on defense, then four field goals from Christian Colasurdo to keep the Golden Bears at bay. Josh Ehrlich was limited to 82 yards passing on 11-of-16 attempts, while running 88 yards on 15 carries.

Sealing the game's outcome in the first half with near-flawless execution on both sides of the ball, top-ranked North Central found little resistance in a 59-6 victory at Langhorst Field. The Cardinals (3-0, 2-0 CCIW) scored touchdowns on all seven possessions in the first two periods, while Elmhurst was forced to punt the first six times it had the ball. The visitors needed four plays to establish a lead they would hold throughout the afternoon, as Joe Sacco slithered through the Bluejays' defense for a 20-yard touchdown run with 13:07 on the first-quarter clock.

Mount Union had plenty of opportunities to spread the ball around, and took advantage of them as the No. 2-ranked Purple Raiders rolled past Muskingum 74-7. Josh Jones got things started with a 64-yard pick-six and Brandon Yanssens added a second pick-six just two and a half minutes later as Mount rolled out to a 47-0 halftime lead. Wayne Ruby had just one catch, but it was a 31-yard touchdown on a day in which 10 Purple Raiders caught passes on offense and three more caught them on defense.