Jackets Run Past Earlham for Second-Straight Victory
RICHMOND, Ind. – The Defiance College football team racked up 462 total yards of offense, with 263 coming on the ground, as the Purple and Gold increased its point total for the fifth-straight game in a convincing, 34-10, win at Earlham on Saturday.
Despite the dominant ground attack from the Yellow Jackets, it was the familiar connection of Garrett Teague to Jon Carrabino through the air for each of DC's first three scores. Teague found Carrabino for strikes of 69, 12 and 48 yards to help Defiance take control with a 20-3 cushion.
Teague then capped 16-play march that spanned 80 yards and nearly nine minutes of action by running into the end zone from two yards out to push the spread to 27-3 with 13:55 left in the contest.
The Quakers found the end zone for the first time later in the fourth quarter to cut the spread to 27-10. The touchdown was the first given up by the Defiance defense in over eight quarters of action, dating back to the third quarter of its September 15 clash with Rose-Hulman.
Hunter Robertson countered the Earlham score and put the game out of reach by picking off a Quaker pass and taking it back 47 yards for a score and the 34-10 lead with 5:26 to play in the game.
The pick-six from Robertson capped a dominant showing from Defiance, in which the Jackets never trailed and held a lead over Earlham from the opening score for the third-straight outing against the Quakers.
DC extended Earlham's losing skid to 25-straight games by holding the EC offense to 48 yards rushing, while gaining 177 more yards of total offense on the afternoon.
Teague led the onslaught by passing for 199 yards and a career-high three touchdowns, while posting another career-high with 94 yards rushing and one score. Carrabino hauled in seven of Teague's nine completions, tallying 166 receiving yards and a career-high three touchdowns, while Trevon Burrell did the heavy lifting with 29 carries for 128 yards on the ground. The number of carries and yards were both personal-bests for the sophomore running back.
The DC defense was also active, picking up three sacks, eight hits for negative yardage, one fumble recovery, one interception and 10 pass breakups in the victory.
Andrew Leverenz led the way, registering three sacks for the first time in his career and ending with seven total stops. Leroy Cheatham also had a breakout contest with a trio of pass breakups to help slow the aggressive EC (0-5, 0-3 HCAC) passing attack.
Defiance (2-3, 2-1 HCAC) will be back in action on October 6 at 1:30 pm, when it takes on Manchester (1-4, 1-2 HCAC).
