Concordia University St. Paul Athletics

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Concordia-St. Paul (1-0) cruised to a 38-21 win over Quincy University (0-1) on Thursday night at Sea Foam Stadium to open Joshua Schumacher's head coaching career at CSP with a victory.

Following the non-conference win, Concordia will hit the road to open Northern Sun action next Thursday night with a 6 p.m. contest against the Dragons. 

It was an all-around victory for the team, with 374 yards of total offense with a balanced rushing (36-164) and passing (23-35, 210) attack. The defense held Quincy to 301 total yards with five sacks and six hurries allowing the pressure to help force three interceptions with a defensive touchdown and a pair of fourth down stops. The special teams had a blocked punt in the red zone, had three punts placed inside the 20 and made all six of their kicks (5-5 PAT, 1-1 FG).

Fifth-year running back Joel Lacy had a strong all-around performance, as well, with 9-65 rushing, 5-47 receiving, a pair of touchdowns with one rushing and one receiving along with a blocked punt. He finished with 118 all-purpose yards including six credited on the blocked punt. 

The run game was balanced as three backs each had nine carries, with BJ Davis going for 9-54 and a touchdown, and Manny Harris producing 9-24 on the ground with 6-23 through air out of the backfield. Overall, the team rushed 36 times for 164 yards, grinding out a 4.6 average. Davis was second on the team with 84 all-purpose yards (54 rush, 7 rec, 23 KR). 

Sophomore quarterback Lincoln Graf engineered a turnover-free offense as CSP was plus-three in the take-give. He completed 23-35 for 210 yards and two touchdowns while adding 7-20 rushing. He targeted nine different options, connecting with eight. In addition to the running back trio hauling in 12 of his 23 completions, he found wide receivers Carter Zezulka and Kemari Walcott four times each, with Zezulka gaining 40 yards and a touchdown and Walcott with 29 yards. he found Tony Edwards III and Vinny Churchwell for his longest two pass plays of the night, a 27-yarder to Edwards III and a 23-yarder to Churchwell. 

Quincy started the night with the ball and after a solid kickoff return, a delay of game penalty before their first snap set things in motion for how the night would go. Two plays later, Concordia's All-GLVC (Quincy's home conference) First Team transfer cornerback TJ Easley-Jones secured an interception near midfield.
 
Armed with excellent field position, Concordia's offense dictated the action, playing with pace and tempo to keep Quincy off balance in a completely new look with the Hawks defeating CSP 38-7 in last year's meeting in Illinois. 

The Golden Bears executed a 4th-and-1 from the Quincy 40-yard line, marching inside the 10-yard line to set up a James Graves 24-yard field goal for the early lead, turning the interception into three points and a lead. It was a methodical 11-play, 42-yard drive taking nearly four and a half minutes of clock. 

Quincy bounced back, getting another strong 28-yard kickoff return and scoring a touchdown on the next play on a 72-yard touchdown run by Collin Parsons. He finished the game with 11 carries for 119 yards and two touchdowns to lead Quincy's offense. 

Concordia showed resilience in the first quarter as Lacy dominated the next drive, bruising the Hawks defense for 50 yards (39 rushing, 11 receiving) while Zezulka had a pair of big catches, an 11-yarder over the middle on 1st-and-20 to negate a penalty, and an 8-yard touchdown over the middle. The drive was a 10-play, 65-yard grind covering nearly six minutes of play for a 10-7 lead late in the first quarter. 

With energy and momentum, the Golden Bears would recover the ensuing onside kickoff attempt for strong field position, keeping Quincy on its heels in the opening quarter, even though the drive would stall. 

The Concordia defense appeared to pick up its first 3-and-out of the night sparked by a second-down sack for a loss of 13 by Percy Robertson, but a roughing the punter penalty on a play where CSP nearly blocked the punt gave Quincy new life on the drive, which would eventually stall and a short 13-yard punt gave Concordia the ball at the 50 for excellent field position for the third time on its first four drives of the game.

The Golden Bears stalled on their first position of the second quarter, but a 44-yard punt by Caden Carsen was downed at the 2-yard line. The Hawks would answer by reclaiming the lead on a 10-play, 98-yard drive covering 4:30 with Parsons scoring his second touchdown, this one from 16 yards out.

After the two teams traded stops, Concordia took over with strong field position at the 40-yard line with 1:35 to play before halftime with Graf going 4-4 in the 2-minute offense for completions of 12 to Harris, 23 to Churchwell, eight to Harris and 17 to Lacy for a touchdown and a 17-14 lead.

Two plays later, Concordia linebacker Clarence Chaney housed a 32-yard interception for a touchdown to give Concordia a 24-14 lead with 40 seconds left in the half, with Quincy taking a knee to end the first half. 

After allowing 116 rushing yards to the Hawks in the opening quarter, the Golden Bears would make adjustments in the second half to slow the Quincy running game. The work paid off, as CSP held Quincy to 6-11 rushing in the third quarter and 11-33 in the second half. 

CSP's defense opened the second half with back-to-back 3-and-outs, and on Quincy's third drive of the third quarter, CJ Jackson picked up an interception on 4th-and-14 at the CSP 21-yard line to stop Quincy's 9-play, 40-yard drive from progressing into points.

On the other side of the ball, Concordia scored on its second drive of the second half as BJ Harris scored from 22-yards out on the ground for a 31-14 lead with 9:07 to play in the third quarter, a lead that would hold into the fourth. 

Quincy finally got back into the end zone on its first drive of the fourth quarter, converting on 3rd-and-goal from the five to make it a two-score game, 31-21 with 13:19 to play.

The Golden Bears continued to be the aggressors with the lead, though, with runs of 7, 6, 13 and 5 including a Graf 6-yard run on 3rd-and-3 from the Quincy 46 to keep pushing into Quincy territory. On 4th-and-2 from the Quincy 19, Lacy pushed through the middle for a touchdown run to blow the game open with 10:08 to play for a 38-21 lead. 

From there, the CSP defense did the rest, as Vinny Wanda and Jude Onuoha teamed up for a sack on fourth down on the next drive and Tyrelle Owens broke up a third-down pass with just over four minutes left to stop another Hawks drive, this time forcing a punt with the game out of reach. 

CSP picked up one more fourth-down conversion, as Davis pushed through the middle on 4th-and-1 from the Quincy 41 yards for three yards, and then gained five more to allow Graf to ice the game in victory formation. 

The Concordia defense held Quincy to 4-12 on third down and 0-2 on fourth, and while Concordia was 3-14 on third down, the Golden Bears were perfect in three fourth-down tries. CSP also was able to take a 10-0 scoring edge off turnovers and held nearly a 10-minute advantage in time of possession (34:38 to 25:22) thanks to a dominant first quarter (11:57 to 3:03). 

CSP stifled quarterback Bradyn Little, who was 22-28 for 256 yards and three touchdowns through the air while rushing for two more scores in last year's game. This year was a completely different look for the sophomore who was coming off of a freshman season when he completed 65 percent of his passes for 2,492 yards and a 17-6 TD-INT ratio with four rushing touchdowns. Tonight against Coach Schumacher's defense, he was just 17-33 for 152 yards, one touchdown and three interceptions. He was under pressure often, sacked five times and hurried six times. 

Concordia's five sacks came from Hudson Jean, Marquis Coleman, Jude Onuoha, Percy Robertson and a half sack each from Danny Coffey and Vinny Wanda. Airion Bradley and Elijah Hall each had a pair of hurries, as well, and the Golden Bears tackled Little near or just beyond the line of scrimmage on passing plays where they forced him from the pocket on numerous occasions, as well. 

Ben Rehl led the CSP defense with eight tackles, adding 2.0 for loss, a pass breakup and a hurry. Jonas Barros added seven tackles and Jean had five with a breakup. Safdar McCray and Aydin Buchanan each had four tackles with McCrary getting one for loss. 

Brock Wiley led Quincy's defense with 16 tackles while Taylin Scott had 11 and Jordan Elmore had 10. The Hawks had 5.0 TFLs and one sack as a team, accounting for just 16 lost yards while Concordia had 9.0 TFLs for 38 yards. 

Concordia improves to 10-7 in home openers at Sea Foam Stadium, are a perfect 3-0 in non-conference games played at Sea Foam Stadium, and improve to 12-5 when scoring 30-plus points at home.