A tale of two halves.
35 points were surrendered by the Colorado Mesa University football team in the second half in the 42-32 loss to Dixie State. The Trailblazers came back from a 21-7 halftime score and put up 591 yards of total offense by the time the clock read triple zeros.
“That’s the tough part of the whole situation,” Head Coach Russ Martin said. “We played pretty dang well for half of the game but we can’t have the mistakes that we had. We can’t expect to win anything playing the way we did in the second half. [Dixie] is a good football team…but at the same time we are just as good, but we just didn’t execute as well.”
The Mavericks brought the momentum they obtained from their 58-point outing the week prior against Black Hills State and scored a special teams touchdown to start the game. Nick Ciccio blocked a DSU punt where Justin White picked it up for his second touchdown in two weeks.
Shortly afterward, DSU quarterback Keaton Mott threw an interception to Devante Loggins that resulted in a Hayden Bollinger nine-yard touchdown run that put CMU up 14-0 at the start of the second quarter. Four minutes later the Trailblazers would get on the board when Mott found Jalen Powell 24 yards downfield for a touchdown.
After the Mavericks surrendered the score, the Trailblazer offense was ineffective for the remainder of the first half and as the CMU offense would take seven minutes off the clock and go back up 21-7 after another Bollinger stumble into the endzone. As for the first half, it was all CMU and there really wasn’t any question about it. DSU was shut down on all ends and Mesa controlled the line of scrimmage on both ends of the ball.
“It’s a fine line of who has the extra momentum,” Russ Martin said. “Then all of a sudden some of the things you have been doing really well, and you’re still doing them okay but they’re doing their stuff better.”
During halftime, there was a switch…
“Then [DSU] started to get some of that momentum,” Martin said. “Then they started to step up and played a little bit more aggressive defensively. We started to miss on some of our reads…then all of a sudden we are punting the football back and they start to do those little things that build that momentum.”
The Trailblazers came out of the locker room and marched downfield scored on a 79-yard drive. Lone behold it would be the start of a 35-point onslaught. The Trailblazers would go on to score 21 unanswered points followed by an 81-yard touchdown run from Sei-J Lauago to give DSU the 35-24 advantage.
Mistakes cost the Mavericks continuously in the second half. The rushing attack for the Trailblazers that considerably ineffective in the first ended the day with a total of 323 yards led by Lauago who ran for 185 yards and the one touchdown. Mott ended the day throwing for 248 yards, four TD and the lone interception.
DSU iced the game with a 12-play 87-yard touchdown drive to end the game and give CMU their first five loss season since 2015. Hayden Bollinger finished the day completing 12 passes for 104 yards, one touchdown and an interception. Isaac Maestas led the CMU rushing attack with 112 yards off of 23 carries.
“We had a lot of really good things going against a very good football team,” Martin said. “Like I said, we had too many small miscues that compounded into the big negative end result.
Bollinger’s outing was the first time all year the Mavericks have utilized just one quarterback for an entire game.
The Mavericks will play another road game at Adams State on Nov. 9 before returning home for the final game of the season against New Mexico Highlands.
