Fulton, Mo 9/9/2023- The Westminster College football team hosted the University of the South- Sewanee Tigers in a week two matchup at Kent and Judith Mueller Stadium. Both teams came into the game looking for their first win having lost in their week one matchups. The Blue Jays would play the Tigers tight for most of the game but would miss a few opportunities to score and committed untimely turnovers that would halt anymore momentum that they would gain. The Tigers would score two fourth quarter touchdowns and go on to win the game 32-14 and improve to 1-1 on the season. The Blue Jays fell to 0-2 but showed much improvement from week one.
Sewanee would strike first scoring a touchdown with seven minutes left in the 1st quarter and would convert a trick play on the 2pt conversion to take an early 8-0 lead. The Blue Jays would respond and march right down the field on an 11 play, 75-yard drive that was capped off by a two-yard rushing touchdown by Dante Billups for the Blue Jays first touchdown of the season. Hugo Jover would make the extra point to put the Blue Jays down 8-7.
The Tigers would score again on their next possession, taking advantage of busted coverage in the Blue Jays secondary to score a 60-yard touchdown pass to go up 15-7 right at the end of the first quarter. Disaster would strike midway through the second quarter as the Tigers defense would intercept a pass by Blue Jay quarterback Keegan Zdybel and return it back for a touchdown. After the pick six, Sewanee would take a 22-7 lead at halftime.
Sewanee would get the ball back to start the second half and would have their drive stale at the Blue Jay nineteen-yard line. The Tigers would attempt a thirty-six-yard field goal that would go wide right and give the Blue Jays the ball with 11:40 remaining in the third quarter. Westminster would make their way down field but would face a fourth and eighteen on the Sewanee forty-nine-yard line. The punt team would come on to the field and kick the ball away, or so everyone thought. Punter Dawson Brandt would mishandle the snap and would take off for a twenty-one-yard rush on a broken play to give the Blue Jays life and knocking on the door of the redzone. Shortly after, running back Trace Helsel would explode for a twenty-five-yard rush and was drug down at the goal line. Helsel would get the ball again at the two yard line and would punch the ball into the endzone for his first rushing touchdown of the season and bring the Blue Jays within one score, 22-14.
The Tigers would kick a field goal to start the fourth quarter to go up 25-14 and would score another touchdown with 6:37 remaining. The Blue Jays would get near the red zone again with less then three minutes on the clock. With time running out and the ball at the Sewanee thirty-three-yard line, backup quarterback Payton Byerley would throw a home run ball toward the endzone but would overshoot his receiver ever so slightly. The Tiger safety would intercept the ball, giving the Tigers their third of the game. Sewanee would win the game with a final score of 32-14.
Brandt was making plays all over the field for the Blue Jays. Brandt not only had the biggest play of the game with his twenty-one-yard rush on the busted punt attempt, but he would also have a team high ten tackles in the game, with two of them being tackles for a loss. He would also punt the ball five times for a total of 191 yards.
Helsel and Billups were the work horses for the Blue Jay offense, combining for a total of 38 rushing attempts for 174 yards on the ground and two touchdowns. Helsel would break a hundred yards rushing with 106 and he would also have one reception for eight yards.
The Blue Jays have a bye week next week and will be back in action on September 23rd for their first road trip of the season when they take on the Lyon College Scots in Batesville, Arkansas.
