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| Redlands held on down the stretch to knock off Linfield, while at the same time, Chapman was holding off Whitworth. Redlands athletics photo by Shawn Lohman |
W&J survived its season opener, but didn't survive the PAC opener as Carnegie Mellon knocked the Presidents off. Meanwhile, Wesley rallied to survive at Endicott, Austin College handed No. 19 Centre its first loss, and JCU won a defensive battle. And all that would have made for an interesting Top 25 roundup, but then Chapman took down No. 10 Whitworth and Redlands defeated No. 11 Linfield to round the night out.
Wyatt Smith uncorked a deep ball down the left sidelines for a 55-yard touchdown to Colton Smith early in the second quarter after Redlands had taken a 10-0 lead and it looked as if Linfield would right the ship. But the Wildcats managed just 132 yards of total offense in the final 42 minutes of the game and were gifted a touchdown after a bad snap on a punt as Redlands went on to win, 27-19.
Redlands kept Wyatt Smith from getting comfortable in the pocket, sacking him three times while breaking up nine of his passes. Meanwhile, the Bulldogs' Noah McFadden blocked a punt deep in Linfield territory and Braxton Taylor picked it up and ran it into the end zone as Redlands went up 27-9 in the fourth quarter. Redlands struggled in the fourth quarter, however, with the bad snap, then committed a holding penalty, followed by an unsportsmanlike condcut penalty which set up third-and-30. But Mason Carvalho ripped off a 29-yard run down the left sideline to set Redlands (3-0) up with fourth-and-1 at the Linfield 40, and with the Redlands offense still on the field, Linfield came out of a timeout with 12 men on the field on defense, giving Redlands a first down and the ability to run out the clock.
"It could have gone either way in this game," Redlands coach Mike Maynard said after the game. "I thought the first half, our offense really made the plays that they needed to make. They scored and gave us enough buffer in the second half, because we weren't as effective in the second half."
The win was the 200th in the Maynard's career. It is the first time Redlands has defeated Linfield in nine tries.
Carvalho finished with 16 carries for 93 yards and a touchdown, while Nathan Martinez was 12-for-18 passing for 139 yards and a score in the win. Jeff Hector had four pass breakups for Redlands.
Chapman's win against Whitworth was the first-ever win for the Panthers against a ranked team, as they defeated 10th-ranked Whitworth 37-30.
A 21-point second quarter swung the momentum in Chapman's favor and the Panthers held on to the lead the rest of the way. The Panthers used a two-quarterback system, four players had at least eight rushes, five receivers caught a pass, five players had at least half a sack, the special teams blocked a punt and booted a record-breaking punt in a crucial situation. Junior quarterback Jonston MacIntyre scored two go-ahead touchdowns. He ran the ball a team-leading 14 times for 75 yards and completed three passes for 50 yards. Sophomore Reed Vettel was 12-for-21 for 160 yards and threw a TD pass to junior Caleb Henshaw for the Panthers first score.
T.J. Williams ran for 166 yards on 29 carries and the Wheaton defense held Illinois Wesleyan to 151 yards of total offense as the No. 17 Thunder defeated the No. 18 Titans, 24-10. Williams ran for a touchdown in the second quarter to give Wheaton a 10-7 lead, then caught a 18-yard touchdown pass from Spencer Peterson on the next possession to extend the lead to 10. A week after running 105 offensive plays, 100 of them in regulation, in a loss to UW-La Crosse, IWU had just 57 offensive snaps on Saturday, falling to 0-2.
On a night when Washington U. celebrated the renaming of its stadium to Francis Olympic Field, No. 5-ranked North Central (Ill.) took a capacity crowd out of the game early and posted a victory over the Bears, ranked No. 24, for the third straight year. Broc Rutter became North Central's all-time leader in career passing yards (10,441) and completed passes (768) and Andrew Kamienski caught a school-record 15 passes as the Cardinals rolled past Washington U. 46-13 on the road. North Central scored 33 unanswered points in the final three quarters. The Cardinals finished the game with 640 yards of total offense, the sixth-highest single-game output in the program's history. Rutter completed 34 of 45 passes for 398 yards and tied a career high with five TD passes, as Kamienski totaled a career-high 181 receiving yards and Blake Williams put up a second straight career-best outing with eight catches for 138 yards.
Quinn Gaughan registered 17 tackles and had two takeaways for the Carnegie Mellon defense, while JD Dayhuff threw for 239 yards and two touchdowns as the Tartans improved to 3-0, defeating No. 12 Washington & Jefferson 20-13. The win marks the highest ever over a ranked opponent for the Tartans since D3football.com started a Top 25 poll in 2003.
With the game tied up since the beginning of the fourth quarter, Carnegie Mellon took the ball over on the W&J 34-yard line after a short punt. Three plays later, Dayhuff found Willie Richter in the front of the end zone for the go-ahead score. Richter kept his feet inbounds for the 29-yard touchdown which made the score 20-13.
Muhlenberg and Susquehanna put on a battle worthy of two Top 25 teams, as the Mules won 24-17 in overtime. Michael Ruisch hit Mikah Christian for a 36-yard touchdown catch with 33.4 seconds left in regulation for No. 25 Susquehanna, but eighth-ranked Muhlenberg scored first in overtime and got the defensive stop for the win.
The Mule defense notched six sacks to keep Susquehanna in check after it scored 70 points in the first two games. Senior All-America defensive end Frankie Feaster blocked two punts and had two and a half sacks in the win.
John Carroll pulled off touchdown drives of 85 and 94 yards, and it was just enough to get the No. 14 Blue Streaks past Otterbein, 14-7. Michael Canganelli ran for 50 yards and a touchdown in the win. While the JCU offense was struggling, the defense was clicking, however. Otterbein tied the game up midway through the second quarter, but missed two field goals and did not get any closer than the Blue Streak 48 in the fourth quarter.
Endicott rolled out to a 17-0 lead at halftime on No. 15 Wesley, but the second half was all Wesley on the scoreboard and the Wolverines were able to finish as Nick Bruhn connected on a 27-yard field goal with two seconds remaining in the contest to lift Wesley to a 20-17 win. Tied 17-17 with two minutes left, the Wolverines went on a 10-play, 48-yard game-winning drive from its own 42-yard-line, mostly behind the arm of senior quarterback Jon Mullin. Mullin finished the day 22-for-27 for 253 yards and two scores.
Austin College jumped out to an early 13-0 lead and the defense held strong at the end as the 'Roos topped No. 19-ranked Centre 20-13. Austin College quarterback Colt Collins made history early on, breaking a 59-year-old career record for yards of total offense, and the senior delivered in the clutch with a fourth-quarter touchdown pass that wound up being the game-winner. Collins finished the game with 295 yards of total offense and threw for two touchdowns while adding another score on the ground.