SUWANEE, Ga. - The Trinity University Tigers stayed alive in the hunt for the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference championship with a 40-0 win over the visiting Sewanee Tigers. The win improved Trinity to 5-1 overall and 2-1 in SCAC play.
Trinity's Kyle Trella set a single-game school record for punting average by averaging 48.8 yards per punt while two of his six punts traveled over 60 yards.
AROUND THE SCAC
Austin College
dropped a tough one 35-28 to Birmingham-Southern over the weekend,
with turnovers proving to be too costly to overcome on Homecoming
weekend. The 'Roos lost five fumbles in the game, one of which was
returned for a touchdown, and had a punt blocked for a touchdown as
BSC came back from an early 21-7 deficit to hand the 'Roos the
loss. Austin College rushed for 253 yards and picked up 26 first
downs, and Andy Braly threw for 167 yards and three scores, which
came on his first three pass attempts, and added 103 yards and
another touchdown on 18 carries. Greg Harrell had three catches for
123 yards and two touchdowns, Ryan Simons rushed 18 times for 79
yards and Nick Zitaglio had a big day defensively, making 11 stops
including 3.5 for loss and one sack in the game.
Birmingham-Southern capitalized on five fumbles by
Austin College to notch a 35-28 come-from-behind victory, Saturday,
at Jerry Apple Stadium. The win was the Panthers’ first over
the ‘Roos in program history. Junior Zac Napier took one of
the AC fumbles 70 yards for the score and Sophomore Eric Nordgren
had an 18-yard blocked punt return for another Panther TD, but the
big offense on the day came from quarterback Joe Thigpen. The
junior had two touchdown passes for 84 yards and capped the day
with the winning score in the fourth quarter with an 11-yard run to
seal the victory for BSC. The Panthers are now 3-3 on the season
and hit the road again this week, heading up to Sewanee to take on
the Tigers at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24.
No. 25 Centre had a bye week this week and will
return to action this Saturday against Millsaps in Jackson, Miss.
The Colonels currently hold the third longest winning streak in
Division III at 10 games dating back to last year. Centre, which
comes in at #25 in this week's D3football.com Top 25, has dropped
three straight to the Majors, but will look to snap that streak
this weekend.
DePauw was off last week and takes a three-game
win streak into Saturday's home game with Trinity. The Tigers are
looking for their first win over Trinity as the Texas-based Tigers
hold a 10-0 lead since DePauw began SCAC play in 1998. The teams
didn't play in 2005 due to the possible impact of Hurricane Rita.
In three straight meetings from 2003-06, DePauw led or was tied
with Trinity in the fourth quarter only to lose. Senior quarterback
Spud Dick heads into the weekend ranked fifth in SCAC history with
7,802 passing yards (needs 72 to pass Drew Mildren, Centre,
1998-01), sixth in total offense with 7,783 total yards and sixth
with 63 touchdown passes (needs 3 to pass Brian Behrendt, Centre,
2001-04). Senior receiver Bryan Mulligan is tied for third in
conference history with Brian Vandergriff (Rhodes, 1990-93) with
182 career receptions and needs three to pass DePauw's Dan Ryan for
second in SCAC and DePauw history. He needs 13 to break DePauw's
record of 195 by Jay True (1977-80) and 32 to break the SCAC mark
of 213 by Trinity's Jason Hunt (1999-02). Junior Alex Koors' 22
career touchdown receptions already ranks eighth in SCAC history.
Millsaps (4-3, 3-1
SCAC) kept its conference championship hopes alive with a 38-22 win
over Rhodes on Saturday, using a four touchdown afternoon from
senior QB Chris Graves and an 84-yard interception return for a
score from Kevin Peters. Despite being out-gained on the day
313-270, Millsaps led 14-7 at the half and scored 10 unanswered in
the opening 5:55 to take a 24-7 lead midway through the third
quarter. Rhodes would cut the lead to 24-14 on freshman Tyler
Perkins’ 26-yard touchdown scamper, but wouldn’t get
any closer as the Majors held on for a 38-22 conference win.
Another huge performance from Millsaps junior linebacker Will
Hawkins stole the show, picking up a career-high 15 tackles –
third straight week with 10 or more – a sack and a fumble
recovery. Colby Langston added 10 tackles and Miles Sager had nine.
Millsaps will host No. 22 Centre (6-0, 3-0 SCAC) next weekend at
Harper Davis Field for Homecoming, with kickoff set for 1 p.m.
Rhodes will host Austin College in a 2 pm
homecoming matchup at Fargason Field on October 24th. The Lynx lost
their 5th straight game as Millsaps downed Rhodes 38-22 in Jackson,
MS on October 17th. Lynx freshman quarterback Tyler Perkins came
off the bench to ignite the Lynx offense in the loss. Perkins
rushed for a career high 143 yards and scored two touchdowns on 18
carries. Perkins also completed 8 of 16 passes for 42 yards and
completed a two point conversion to sophomore wide receiver Jake
Jackson. For the season Jackson leads all Lynx receivers with 30
receptions for 390 yards. Freshman Jack Lartigue is 2nd on the team
with 28 receptions.
Sewanee played at 5-1 Trinity Saturday and a Chris
Baer 30-yard TD in the first quarter was the opening score for TU
that would set the tone for the 40-0 Trinity win. Trinity led 30-0
at the half. Sewanee's Patrick Shelton completed four passes for 20
yards to lead the Sewanee offense. Defensively, J.D. Crabtree led
Sewanee with 11 total tackles, while Matt Moore had 10. Crabtree
broke up three passes on the day, too. The 0-6 purple Tigers will
host Birmingham-Southern next weekend for the annual Sewanee
Athletics Hall of Fame weekend.
Trinity scored 40 or more points for the third
time in its last four games, posting its first shutout of the
season in a 40-0 win over Sewanee: University of the South on
Saturday. The Trinity Tiger defense was the most impressive part of
the afternoon, yielding just 42 total yards of offense to the
visiting Sewanee team. Trinity forced Sewanee into negative yardage
on six drives, and in the second half, Sewanee was limited to just
one first down and didn’t have a drive more than 10 yards
after halftime. The Trinity defense forced two turnovers and
recorded a safety for the first time since the 2006 season. The
Tigers also gave up less than 100 yards for the first time since a
1998 game against Sewanee. Offensively, Chris Baer scored a pair of
touchdowns and gained 92 yards on just 11 carries in the game. Al
Furlow added 68 yards and a touchdown on just six carries, and the
Trinity offensive line cleared the way for 218 yards rushing in the
game. Caleb Urban led the team in receiving with three catches for
44 yards and a touchdown, as well as adding 24 yards rushing and 32
yards in kickoff returns to total 100 all-purpose yards in the
game. Despite the lopsided score, Trinity still called on the
services of first-year punter Kyle Trella. Trella came into the
game third in Division III in punting yards/game, and didn’t
disappoint in this one. He punted five times for 244 yards, with
three of those five punts going inside the 20 yard line. He had two
punts of 60 yards or more and his 48.8 yards/punt average breaks a
46-year-old Trinity record for a single game. Trinity will travel
to DePauw this weekend, playing to stay alive in the SCAC
championship hunt. Trinity holds a 10-0 record against DePauw,
including last year’s 45-32 win over the Tigers from Indiana.
For the complete SCAC Gridiron Weekly for Week 7, click here.
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