ST. PAUL, Minn. - For the first time since 2011, Concordia-St. Paul football (6-4 NSIC, 4-2 South) has secured a winning season, defeating Southwest Minnesota State (3-7 NSIC, 1-5 South) 24-14 on Saturday afternoon at Sea Foam Stadium. Junior Chris Garrett set a new NCAA Division II career record with his 15th forced fumble in the win.

The win came in Concordia's 500th game of college football (1969) and 200th in the NSIC (1999) and also secures the first 4-win season at Sea Foam Stadium, which opened in 2009. Concordia, who secured its 19th overall winning season, ninth in the NCAA Division II era and fifth in head coach Shannon Currier's eight seasons at the helm, will host Winona State next Saturday at noon for senior day.

The Golden Bears bruised the Mustangs for 221 yards on the ground and held SMSU to 71 yards on 35 rushing attempts, the fifth time since 2016 that the Golden Bears have rushed for 200-plus and held an opponent under 100 yards in the same game.

The running game fueled the win, as SMSU passed for 397 yards while limiting Concordia to 65 yards through the air.

While SMSU rallied for big chunks through the air, Concordia's big plays on the pass rush and in the secondary continued to thwart Mustang momentum. A costly taunting penalty by SMSU wide receiver Daniel Davis negated a touchdown in the fourth quarter and three plays later CSP junior cornerback Preston Piltoff returned an interception 92 yards for a touchdown to turn what could have been a 17-14 lead for CSP into a game-changing 24-7 advantage with 9:16 to play.

Piltoff, whose INT on a two-point try sealed the win over BSU just two weeks ago, had a pair of interceptions in the game, broke up three passes and made eight tackles. It was Concordia's first pick-six since Dez Bassett's 77-yarder last season in a win at UMary.

It was part of a three turnover day by the CSP defense, with Garrett extending his national lead in forced fumbles (7) with a strip sack in the first half, recovered by sophomore defensive line-mate Shawn Aarhus. Garrett had 3.0 sacks and TFLs among his six total tackles. He moves up to 13th in Division II history with 36.5 career sacks and is now with 10 sacks shy of second place Lucky Baar of McKendree (2013-16) on the all-time list. He has 14.0 sacks and 20.5 tackles for loss on the year and his seven forced fumbles are tied for third most in Division II history, just two shy of the national single season record.

Offensively, it was sophomore Shaq Johnson who pounded it on the ground for the Golden Bears with 132 rushing yards on a career-high 24 carries including a short rushing touchdown to extend CSP's lead to 17-7 early in the fourth quarter. He also had four receptions for 23 yards. He became the second Golden Bear running back to top 1,000 career rushing yards, joining Lajuan Preston. Johnson now has 1,068 career rushing yards with over 300 of those coming in two games against the Mustangs.

Senior quarterback Maxon Hutton returned to the field after missing most of last week's game at Augustana with an injury and executing the role of game manager while protecting the lead. He was efficient in completing 10-of-14 passing attempts for 65 yards, finding senior Jake Tanner five times for 46 yards. He also had 14 rushing attempts for 27 yards including a short rushing touchdown to put CSP on the scoreboard first for a 7-0 lead late in the first quarter.

Mustang quarterback Boyer Bouman completed 33-of-53 for 397 yards and a touchdown, but was intercepted twice and sacked seven times by the Golden Bears. He connected 15 times with Davis for 221 yards but his lone touchdown strike was to Max Simmons out of the backfield from 19 yards out to pull hte Mustangs back within 10, 24-14 with 5:26 to play in the fourth quarter. Simmons finished with 51 rushing yards on 13 attempts and added 3-38 receiving.

The Mustangs finished the game with 31 first downs compared to 15 for Concordia, but the Golden Bears won the time of possession battle (30:09 to 29:53) and held SMSU scoreless on half of its four trips to the red zone.

Concordia also offset the yardage and first down disparity due to dominating the field position game with an average start advantage of 21 yards. CSP averaged a start at the 42 yard line while holding SMSU to its own 21, on average. Returner Isaiah Koran made a couple of strong plays, including a 45-yard return to start the second half at the SMSU 43 yard line and an 18-yard return following an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on SMSU to start a late third quarter drive at the 50-yard line.

Danny Laudet had another strong day in the kicking game, hitting his only field goal attempt from 38 yards for his 16th field goal of the year, delivered touchbacks on three of his five kickoffs and punted twice for a 45.5 average with a long of 50 and one inside the 20.