A four-yard scramble on 4th-and-3 by Charger quarterback Chance Stewart sealed a much-needed win for the Hillsdale College football team in Michigan's Upper Peninsula Saturday afternoon.
Stewart and the Chargers won a shootout over Northern Michigan University 41-38 in Marquette's Superior Dome. The win snapped a three-game losing streak for Hillsdale, and puts the team at 4-4 overall and 3-4 in the GLIAC.
The game was a matchup of big plays by both offenses, but it was the Hillsdale defense that came up with the biggest sequence of the game, late in the fourth quarter.
The Wildcats stopped the Chargers on a 4th-and-2, setting themselves up at the NMU 43-yard line with around five minutes to go, down by 3. To that point, the Wildcats had 343 passing yards and 38 points. But the Charger defense dug deep to make the stop they needed to make.
A 3-yard pass completion on first down was followed by two incomplete passes, with junior linebacker Jay Rose (pictured) breaking up the third-down pass. NMU was forced to punt on fourth down, and the Charger offense took over from there, running out the final 4:26 of the clock.
Sophomore running back Joe Reverman had his best game of the season, and came up with some important yardage on that final drive. He carried the ball five times for 21 yards, forcing NMU to burn up its timeouts. Sophomore John Brennan also stepped up on that final drive, catching two passes for 19 yards that helped keep the Hillsdale offense on the field.
Reverman carried the ball 31 times for 168 yards and 3 touchdowns, all season-highs, for the Chargers. His final score of the day, from 6 yards out, was set up by an 84-yard punt return by junior Chris Koenigsknecht, setting Hillsdale up at the Northern Michigan 6-yard line. That kick return was huge, because it helped Hillsdale complete a 10-point run after NMU had come back to tie the game at 31.
Reverman scored on runs of 3, 65 and 6 yards, the second of those his longest run of the season. Sophomore Austin Sandusky opened the scoring with a 37-yard touchdown run, the longest run from scrimmage of his career.
Sophomore wide receiver Trey Brock also made a bit of history in this game. He caught 8 passes for 144 yards, notching his seventh 100-yard receiving game of the season. That sets a new school record for most 100-yard receiving games in a single season, breaking the mark of six held by Andre Holmes and set in 2010.
Junior Austin Adams caught a 14-yard touchdown pass from Stewart that gave Hillsdale its biggest lead of the game, 28-14, in the second quarter. A wild first half ended with Hillsdale holding a 31-28 lead, the highest scoring half of football played by the team this season.
Defensively, the Chargers impacted the game thanks to sacks by the D-line. Hillsdale had 5 sacks as a team in 7 games coming into this contest, but generated 3 against the Wildcats. Jordon Harlamert, Drew Mallery and Charlie Yost all tallied sacks for the Chargers, while linebacker Wain Clark also picked up a tackle-for-loss.
Rose led the defense with 9 total tackles, 7 of them solo stops. Wyatt Batdorff had 8, while Harlamert, Scotty Penola and Will Jones each recording 6 stops.
UP NEXT: Hillsdale hosts Ferris State at noon Saturday, Nov. 5
PHOTO CREDIT: Carly Gouge