Tough end to UMD Footballs 2016 season

It was not an ideal way to end the season for the University of Minnesota Duluth football team as the Emporia State University Hornets handed them a 59-26 defeat.

The Bulldogs traveled to Emporia, Kansas this past weekend to take on the Hornets in the first round of the National Collegiate Athletic Association division II playoffs.

Held to just six points in the second half of Saturday’s battle, UMD was unable to come up with any answers to stop the Hornet offense.

"Obviously this was a tough loss for our team and program," said UMD head coach Curt Wiese. “Emporia State played a good game and you have to hand it to them. It came down to making stops on defense and not turning the ball over on offense and they did a better job doing that today."

The Bulldogs looked to be keeping pace with Emporia offensive arsenal heading into halftime only trailing 20-28.

Receiving the second half kickoff, the Hornets traveled 81 yards in 10 plays to open up the second half scoring with a 19-yard touchdown pass from sophomore quarterback Braxton Marstall. Marstall finished the game with five passing touchdowns and completing 26 of 39 passes for 481 yards.

Marstall’s counterpart, UMD quarterback Drew Bauer, threw for 340 yards and two touchdowns completing 24 of his 46 pass attempts. Bauer, who had only thrown 5 interceptions all year, threw for two of them in Saturday’s bout.

Bauer threw one of his two touchdowns to sophomore wide receiver Jason Balts. Balts had himself a day, racking up 137 receiving yards on seven catches to go along with his 90-yard kick return touchdown in the second quarter.

Following the game, emotions ran high, especially for Bauer as he struggled to find the words to describe the feeling that his collegiate football career was over.

“I wouldn’t want to be along side any other team, any other players, anyone else on the staff,” Bauer said.

Photo by Emporia State Athletics