Auggies win at St. John's with TD in final second

COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. -- Tyler Swanson (JR, Lakeville, Minn./Lakeville North HS) caught a 32-yard touchdown pass from Marcus Brumm (SR, Lakeville, Minn./Lakeville South HS) on the final offensive play of the game, giving Augsburg College a 32-31 victory at St. John's University in a Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference football game on Saturday afternoon.

Before a crowd of 12,211 at Clemens Stadium, Augsburg (3-0 overall, 2-0 MIAC) drove 80 yards on four plays in the final 18 seconds of the game to claim the victory, after St. John's (2-2 overall, 1-1 MIAC) had taken the lead with a touchdown with 23 seconds left.

After a 14-yard kickoff return by Brandon Hinton (JR, Rock Hill, S.C./South Pointe HS) to the Augsburg 20-yard line with 18 seconds remaining, Brumm completed a 48-yard pass to Wesley Waytashek (JR, Little Falls, Minn.) to the St. John's 32-yard line. The Auggies spiked the ball to stop the clock, but on the next play, a pass to the end zone was incomplete. Six-tenths of a second remained on the clock, giving Augsburg one final play, enabling Brumm to complete the game-winning pass to Swanson.

The victory was the first for Augsburg at St. John's since a 21-10 triumph on Sept. 13, 1980, snapping a 14-game road losing streak for the Auggies in Collegeville. The win also snapped a 13-game overall losing streak to the Johnnies, with the Auggies' last win coming on Sept. 20, 1997, a 20-10 win in Minneapolis.

Brumm completed 26-of-42 passes for 401 yards and four touchdowns, becoming the fifth Auggie in school history to reach the 5,000-yard mark in career passing. Brumm now has 5,370 passing yards in his 20 career starts as an Auggie, now third in school history in career passing yardage. The 401-yard effort marked the ninth time Brumm has thrown for 300 or more yards in his career.

Swanson caught six passes for a career-high 147 yards, including a 78-yard reception to the Johnnie 1-yard line on Augsburg's first drive of the game, setting up a 1-yard rushing touchdown by running back Tyler Maxwell (FY, Prior Lake, Minn.). Maxwell rushed 22 times for 96 yards and now has five touchdowns in his two career games.

Hakeem Bourne-McFarlane (SO, Bloomington, Minn./Kennedy HS) caught six passes for 85 yards and a touchdown, Waytashek caught three passes for 85 yards, and Adam Carl (SO, Eagan, Minn.) caught four passes for 53 yards. Running back Waylon Hartwick (JR, Minneapolis, Minn./South HS) rushed eight times for 28 yards and caught five passes for 25 yards and two touchdowns.

Johnnie quarterback Jon Ries completed 19-of-27 passes for 226 yards, while Connor Bruns completed 5-of-6 passes on the Johnnies' final drive, including the 17-yard scoring pass to Sam Pederson with 23 seconds left in the game. Taylor Freetly caught nine passes for 154 yards to lead the Johnnies, while Nick Schneider rushed 15 times for 43 yards and two scores. Stephen Johnson rushed 11 times for 55 yards.

The Johnnies took an early lead on the first drive of the game, as running back Harry Awe threw a 25-yard halfback-option touchdown pass to Max Forster, but the Auggies came back following Swanson's 78-yard reception, with Maxwell's touchdown cutting the lead to 7-6.

The Johnnies' Jimmie Mattson hit a 48-yard field goal with 8:08 left in the first quarter to give the hosts a 10-6 lead, but Augsburg scored the next 20 points of the game -- Hartwick scoring on three- and nine-yard touchdown receptions from Brumm, and Bourne-McFarlane scoring on a 21-yard pass from Brumm with 7:17 left in the second quarter -- as the Auggies took a 26-10 advantage.

St. John's then scored 21 unanswered points, with two rushing touchdowns by Schneider and the Pederson reception from Bruns on the Johnnies' final drive.

Defensively, Tyler Phillips (SR, Lino Lakes, Minn./Centennial HS) had 13 tackles (nine solo), while Felix Coleman (FY, Alexandria, Minn./Jefferson HS) had 10 tackles (six solo). Auggie defenders claimed three quarterback sacks in the game -- solo sacks by Edmond Smith (SR, Minneapolis, Minn./North HS) and Aaron Perry (JR, Lino Lakes, Minn./Centennial HS), and a combined sack by Bryce Vee (JR, Coon Rapids, Minn./Blaine HS) and Sean Crayne (JR, Trimont, Minn./Martin County West HS).

Jake King and Andrew Rose had seven tackles each for St. John's.

Both teams return to MIAC play next Saturday (10/1), as Augsburg has its home-opener against Carleton at 1 p.m. at Edor Nelson Field, and St. John's plays at St. Thomas.