ST. PAUL, Minn. - Concordia-St. Paul (3-5, 2-5 NSIC, 0-3 South) dropped a 34-27 NSIC South Division contest to Winona State (3-5, 3-4 NSIC, 2-2 South) on a warm, breezy Saturday afternoon at Sea Foam Stadium.
Concordia found itself in a 26-7 halftime deficit as the visiting Warriors scored on big plays of 64, 60 and 22-yards in a 30-point combined quarter after the Warriors led 3-0 after the first quarter.
The Warriors compiled 327 yards of total offense in the first half, but the Concordia defense solidified its game plan at halftime and held WSU to just 133 yards in the second half as the offense was able to execute on three long second-half scoring drives.
Running back
Joel Lacy scored on a 1-yard plunge on 4th-and-goal to pull CSP within a score, 26-20, with 8:51 remaining. The TD run by Lacy was his eighth total touchdown of the year and he finished the day with 81 combined yards on 7-33 rushing and 3-48 receiving. While Lacy found the end zone and topped 80 combined yards, it was a breakout from freshman
Jerror Koung who ignited the offense in the second half. He finished with 8-88 rushing and had 4-64 on the ground in the third quarter with a pair of 24-yard runs through the teeth of WSU's defense.
The early fourth-quarter touchdown drive for the Golden Bears covered 76 yards on 12 plays, consuming 5:56 of clock and featured a pair of big money down plays by Lacy: a 3rd-and-4 pickup from the WSU 34-yard line and the 4th-and-goal plunge. Lacy's fourth-down touchdown was CSP's sixth fourth-down touchdown of the season.
The Warriors responded, however, picking their final drive to go 3-3 on third down including a 6-yard passing touchdown on 3rd-and-goal to finish a 14-play, 75-yard scoring drive that sucked six minutes and 50 seconds off the clock when time was CSP's most important asset.
Concordia would strike back as sophomore quarterback
Lincoln Graf engineered a crisp 9-play, 75-yard drive, finding
Carter Zezulka for the second time on the day for a 6-yard touchdown strike with 18 seconds left, enough time for an onside kick to make things interesting. On the late game drive, Graf continued to showcase his ability to execute in pressure situations, completing a 16-yard pass to
EJ Previlma on 4th-and-6 from the CSP 29-yard line with under a minute to play, scrambling for an 8-yard run and getting out of bounds to pick-up a 3rd-and-2 from the WSU 47 with under 50 seconds to go before connecting with
Tony Edwards III for 33 yards inside the 10 and finding Zezulka for six points on the next play without needing to spend a down killing the clock.
CSP then sent both of its kickers, kickoff specialist
Ryan Schroeder and placekicker
James Graves, onto the field with Schroeder sending a bouncer towards the Warrior sideline and WSU tight end James Durst, a 6-foot, 5-inch target, looking poised to pounced on the bouncer before it awkwardly spiked upwards with the large-framed tight end snagging it and dropping back to the turf to effectively end the contest.
Graf completed 17-26 for 190 yards and a pair of touchdowns and added 13-32 rushing with 25 additional yards negated on a pair of first-half sacks. Graf also had a rushing touchdown for a three-TD day and presided over a turnover-free offense for the fifth time in eight games on the season.
Concordia won the turnover battle as sophomore cornerback
Milton Blamo was in on a pair of turnovers with the help from his safeties. He intercepted a pass in the back of the end zone following a deflection by sophomore
Oskari Toijala, and recovered a fumble that was forced by freshman
Tyrelle Owens.
Graf connected with
Tony Edwards III four times for a team-high 63 yards and had a pair of 33-yard passes, one to Edwards III and the other to Lacy. Zezulka also had four catches, going for 32 yards and finding the end zone twice on catches of one and six yards.
Concordia finished the day with 324 yards of total offense with 190 through the air and 134 on the ground despite with a solid 265-yard second-half performance.
Defensively, while Blamo had a big day with a pair of turnovers, it was linebacker
Jonas Barros who once again led CSP in tackles with nine, surpassing 100 for his career with 103. He had 2.0 tackles for loss, as well, while senior
Ricky Dixon added eight tackles with 1.0 TFL starting in place of fifth-year linebacker
Ben Rehl who was scratched due to injury. Rehl entered the day with 173 career tackles in 33 games and was second on the team with 39 tackles in 2026.
In addition to forcing the fumble that was picked up in the pile by the smallest guy (Blamo), Owens added seven tackles from the secondary. As a team, CSP had 5.0 tackles for loss, four quarterback hurries and three pass breakups in addition to the two turnovers.
Winona State did its damage on the ground, rushing for 298 yards as a team on 37 rushing attempts as AJ Moore (14-142) and Jahmani Muhammad (12-121) each averaged 10.1 per carry and had second-quarter rushing touchdowns of 60 and 64 yards, respectively. Quarterback Jacob Sampson added 5-24 on the ground, primarily scrambling to evade a solid CSP pass rush while avoiding being sacked on the day despite the pressure. Sampson completed 16-29 for 162 yards and two TD passes with one interception. He found Nolan Ginskey for 7-106 and a touchdown.
Concordia scored four touchdowns and 27 points in five trips to the red zone while holding WSU to just 10 points on four red zone trips with a TD, FG and a pair of empty red zone trips.
The Golden Bears return to the road next Saturday, heading to #22 Wayne State for a 1 p.m. kickoff at Memorial Stadium in Wayne, Nebraska.
