Merchant Marine cornerback Dylan Brown had a big day against Coast Guard, helping keep the Bears' passing game in check. U.S. Merchant Marine Academy athletics photo by Alan Schaefer

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Games of 2020

Offense

QB Ian Blankenship, Merchant Marine

Blankenship helped engineer the Mariners' triple-option offense, running for 151 yards and a touchdown and throwing for 68 more yards in Merchant Marine's 24-14 win against archrival Coast Guard in the game for the Secretaries Cup. Blankenship ran for 39 yards on four carries on the drive where the Mariners regained a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter. On the ensuing drive, with Merchant Marine trying to run out the clock, he ran for 12 key yards on third-and-13, giving his team a short conversion on fourth down. He added a 7-yard run later on the same drive to give his team its 24th and final first down, sending the Mariners into the victory formation.

OL Markus Finley, Cade McClellan, Dustin Massie, Zack Jaska, Hunter Lacer, Bluffton

The starting offensive line for Bluffton helped the Beavers hold onto the ball for almost 34 minutes, including a key 13-play, 7:29 drive over the third and fourth quarter and put Bluffton up by two scores. Bluffton racked up 372 yards rushing on the afternoon. After Adrian scored to cut the lead to 28-21 with 4:33 left, Bluffton never relinquished the ball, as the Beavers ran for three first downs to run out the clock.

RB Darian Greeley, Bluffton

Greeley made the most of his one opportunity for the Beavers this season, plowing his way through Adrian in a 28-21 win on Oct. 24. Greeley had nine carries for 121 yards and two touchdowns in the first 10 minutes of the game alone and finished with 42 carries, 297 yards and three scores in the win. He pounded out 39 yards on seven carries to seal the game in the closing 4:33.

RB Xaine Kirby, Trine

Kirby ran for 141 yards and three touchdowns on Oct. 3 in Trine's season-opening 44-27 win against Adrian. His final score, a 6-yard touchdown with 3:11 left in the game, put the Thunder up 42-27 and put the Bulldogs away.

RB Steven Moses, Adrian

Moses ran for 159 yards and three touchdowns on 29 carries in Adrian's 28-21 loss to Bluffton on Oct. 24. He also scored on a key two-point conversion on the Bulldogs' first possession of the third quarter to tie the game at 14.

WR Preston Smith, Adrian

Smith burst onto the scene with two impressive outings in his three fall games for Adrian. The freshman caught nine passes for 136 yards in Adrian's season finale on Oct. 24 at Bluffton. That performance included a 28-yard catch to get the Bulldogs to the 4-yard line, where Steven Moses took it in for a rushing touchdown on the next play.

WR Jared Colletti, Coast Guard

Colletti scored both of the Bears' touchdowns, including one that cut Coast Guard's deficit to three points with 9:09 left. He took a little swing pass and made two defenders miss before taking off for a 24-yard touchdown catch-and-run. Colletti had six catches for 88 yards and a score and added four carries for 24 yards and a touchdown.

Defense

DE DeAndre Jennings, Adrian

Jennings registered a team-high nine tackles, seven of them solo stops, and returned a fumble 60 yards for a touchdown to help the Bulldogs win going away in a 41-10 victory at Manchester on Oct. 17.

DT Kendall Himes, Trine

Himes had two of the team's nine tackles for loss and both of them were sacks in Trine's 37-0 win vs. Manchester on Oct. 10. Both of Himes' sacks came on third down, and one of them came with a forced fumble. He finished with three tackles on the afternoon, with the third one a stop for no gain.

DT Dana Shoulders II, Bluffton

Shoulders had two and a half tackles for loss among his seven tackles in Bluffton's 28-21 win against Adrian. Immediately after Bluffton extended its lead to two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, Shoulders stopped Adrian running back Steven Moses for a loss of 4 yards on a second-and-3 and Adrian was forced to punt.

DE Devontay Moore, Manchester

Moore did his best to help Manchester stay in the game in an Oct. 10 loss at Trine. He finished with 12 tackles, 10 solo, including three tackles for loss and a forced fumble. Ten of his 12 stops came no more than 3 yards downfield. A stop for no gain at the 3 on Trine's first drive of the game forced the Thunder to settle for a field goal and a sack on second-and-goal from the 1 at the end of the first half kept another four points off the board.

LB Eugene Bizer, Coast Guard

Bizer's abbreviated senior season saw him rack up 20 tackles, 14 of them solo, in the Secretaries Cup game loss at Merchant Marine. He also had two tackles for loss, one of which came at the end of the first quarter to help the Bears shut down a Mariners drive with the game tied 7-7.

LB Marcques Tagliaferri, Trine

Tagliaferri registered 10 total tackles, including one and a half sacks, in Trine's season opening win against Adrian. The sacks came on Adrian's final possession, when the Bulldogs were attempting to rally from two scores down with three minutes left. The first sack pushed Adrian back to its own 1, and the second resulted in a forced fumble and a safety.

CB Dylan Brown, Merchant Marine

Brown broke up three passes and had two tackles in Merchant Marine's 24-14 win vs. archrival Coast Guard. Brown's first breakup, in the second quarter, kept Coast Guard's leading receiver from 2019 from making his first catch of the game. He broke up two more in the fourth quarter en route to the win.

S Xavier Coleman, Merchant Marine

Coleman's play in the secondary helped the Mariners' defense lock down on the Coast Guard quarterback, who completed just four of 15 passes in the second and third quarter. 

S Brandon Kwiatkowski, Adrian

Kwiatkowski had a team-high 14 tackles for the Bulldogs in the 28-21 loss at Bluffton, often serving as touchdown-saving tackles. He also had a tackle for loss.

S Stephan Kosakowski, Bluffton

Kosakowski had eight total tackles and a forced fumble, often bringing down the load that is Adrian running back Steven Moses in the Beavers' 28-21 win vs. the Bulldogs.

CB JaJuan Stokes, Adrian

Stokes filled the stat line for the Bulldogs in the Oct. 17 win at Manchester. He accounted for six total tackles, a sack, two pass breakups and a forced fumble in the 41-10 win. Stokes set the tone early, breaking up a pass on second-and-11 in the first quarter and tackling the receiver for a gain of just 2 on the following play, forcing a punt. He forced the fumble that DeAndre Jennings returned for his 60-yard touchdown.

Special teams

K Cooper West, Adrian

West got the scoring started for Adrian on Oct. 17 at Manchester with a 35-yard field goal on the Bulldogs' first drive of the game, and added a 29-yard field goal early in the second quarter to make sure Adrian came away with points on two key early drives. Adrian went on to win 41-10.

P Finnegan Hall, Coast Guard

Hall punted four times for the Bears on Nov. 14 at Merchant Marine, averaging 43.0 yards per punt. Two of them landed inside the 20 and another at the 23, and the Mariners managed a total of 1 yard in punt returns on the day.

RET Mitchell Mallek, Adrian

In a fall where nobody returned a kick for a touchdown, Mallek picked off a Manchester pass and returned it 47 yards to the Spartan 13-yard line in the closing minutes, giving the Bulldogs a chance for the reserves to put the ball in the end zone in a 41-10 win.

ST Aaron Dean, Trine

Dean was responsible for and scored the first points of the 2020-21 Division III football season as he blocked a short field goal attempt by Adrian's Cooper West, then scooped up the ball and took it 84 yards for a touchdown in the teams' season opener on Oct. 3. Dean also recovered a fumbled punt in the fourth quarter, which Trine was able to convert into a touchdown to take a two-score lead with 3:11 left in an eventual 44-27 win.