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| Seth Morem and his fellow St. John's defensive players celebrate after teammate Collin Franz stripped the ball from Gavin Zimbelman in the closing seconds of a 39-33 win. Photo by Caleb Williams, d3photography.com | More photos from this game |
St. John's and Aurora had another epic matchup, playoff contenders from the PAC and OAC met in a pitched battle and Mount Union rolled to a big win in Saturday's early Top 25 games.
No. 6 St. John's and No. 23 Aurora traded the lead off five times in the second half, and only one final defensive stop, with under a minute left in the game, allowed the roller coaster to end. With Aurora lined up for fourth and goal from the 1-yard line, Johnnies senior defensive lineman Collin Franz slipped through the line untouched, got his hand on Aurora quarterback Gavin Zimbelman, knocking the ball out and allowing St. John's to jump on it and hold on for a 39-33 win.
Franz was making his first start for St. John's, part of a Johnnie lineup that featured lots of new faces on both sides of the ball.
Zimbelman, a preseason D3football.com All-America selection, drove the Spartans 64 yards in nine plays, incluing a 6-yard pass to Matt Piasecki on third-and-goal from the 7. St. John's took timeout, and on the ensuing play, Aurora rolled right but Zimbelman never had a chance to throw.
Andrew Wolf, a D3football.com preseason All-America selection himself, caught three touchdown passes, including two in the fourth quarter as No. 19 Washington & Jefferson got past No. 11 John Carroll 21-14. Wolf helped his team make up for a scoreless first half with touchdown catches of 65, 56 and 7 yards in the win. His third catch gave W&J a 21-7 lead. JCU rallied, including a 22-yard toss from Jake Floriea to Joe Torok on fourth-and-17, but the Blue Streaks were not able to recover the onside kick and W&J was able to put the game away. Justin Heacock finished an efficient 21-for-26 passing for 234 yards in the win.
Mitch Gerhartz ran for two touchdowns, the second one coming at the end of a 71-yard drive as his score with 5:52 remaining gave No. 9 UW-Oshkosh the lead for good in a 28-24 win at Huntingdon. The home-standing Hawks had taken the lead earlier in the fourth on a 40-yard field goal by Will Edwards. Huntingdon went three-and-out on the ensuing drive and punted remaining but never got the ball back, as Oshkosh ran off the final 4:49 of the game with 10 ground gains by Gerhartz, Peter MacCudden and quarterback Kobe Berghammer. The last came on four down, a 4-yard run on fourth-and-2 from the 7. Landon Cotney led Huntingdon with 164 yards on 17 carries and was 15-for-32 passing for two scores, while Berghammer completed 11 of 23 passes for 187 yards and ran for a touchdown in the win.
Josh Petruccelli had four rushing touchdowns, three in the first half as the Mount Union defense held Westminster (Pa.) to four first downs as Mount Union ran out to a 35-7 lead at the break. Petruccelli put one more score on the board in the second half to give him four for the day and 49 for his career. Quarterback Braxton Plunk threw for over 300 yards with touchdown passes to Derrick Harvey, Jr., and Ulice Gillard.
No. 15 Union got back into the swing of things after a 643-day layoff and looked to be in midseason form, rolling past Morrisville State 48-14. William Bellamy went 20-for-25 passing for 294 yards and four touchdowns, two of them to Andre Ross Jr. "It's been a long time since I had to play a full game," Bellamy said. "I can tell you that the excitement was second to none. We were flying around, came out here with a mindset, played hard and got the W."
Imhotep Cromer caught ten balls for 123 yards and a touchdown, while the Brockport defense caused seven turnovers and pitched a shutout on the afternoon as No. 22 Brockport cruised past Framingham State 31-0. Freshman quarterback Jack Cheshire made an impressive collegiate debut as he completed 23-of-37 passes for 189 yards and two touchdowns.
Top-ranked Mary Hardin-Baylor had little trouble in its opener, rolling past Simpson 84-6. Kyle King and Tommy Bowden combined for 358 yards of total offense while Brandon Jordan caught five passes for 116 yards and two scores. No. 4 UW-Whitewater racked up 41 first-half points en route to a 46-7 win against Carthage. Max Meylor was 12-for-18 passing for 238 yards and two scores for the Warhawks, while Evan Lewandowski, who transferred to Whitewater from UW-La Crosse during COVID, went 4-for-7 passing and was picked off twice. Whitewater held the Firebirds to 111 yards of total offense.
Dickinson jumped out to a 14-3 lead in the first quarter, but No. 17 Randolph-Macon scored 21 in a row and went on to defeat the Red Devils 31-21. Presley Egbers threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to Joey Hunt with nine seconds left in the half and the Yellow Jackets got the ball back to start the second half and drove 84 yards to take the lead. Egbers completed 14 of 21 passes for 163 yards and one TD, while R-MC held the ball for more than 40 minutes.
Michael Hnatkowsky had a productive day in Muhlenberg's return to the field for the first time since the 2019 national semifinals. He completed 26 of 33 passes for 266 yards and two touchdowns as the No. 13 Mules rolled past TCNJ 41-0. Muhlenberg racked up nine tackles for loss from nine players as the defense limited the Lions to 211 total yards, 52 of them on their final drive with the game well in hand.