Streak stays alive, records fall in crosstown clash

Photo by Alena Peters, Morningside Sports Information Intern

SIOUX CITY, IOWA – Morningside kept a 20-year win streak alive in its 59-23 rout of Briar Cliff in football, but that wasn't the only talking point for the day.

In fact, it's difficult to look at the week's game without first describing the circumstances that surrounded its beginning, in which wildlife collided with a transformer near the edge of campus, knocking out power to Elwood Olsen Stadium and several other buildings, just hours before kickoff.

The outage saw the stadium quickly return to its early days, with no electronic scoreboard or public address system. And, like then, play went on, with the teams warming up in near silence until the Marching Mustangs arrived on scene. Time was kept on the field by the officials and kickoff occurred as originally scheduled.

Morningside took the first half kick and moved down the field, only to be stalled by the Chargers and forced to settle for a Chase Carter field goal from the 35-yard line.

BCU quickly marched down the field on its ensuing possession, striking for a touchdown that represented one of only a few leads in the contest's history, and left the home stands wondering. 

As Briar Cliff scored again, and now down 14-3, head coach Steve Ryan encouraged his team to refocus, and the Mustangs next drive was capped with a one yard touchdown run for Ryan Cole to close the gap to 14-10.

"We needed to settle down and focus on execution and hustling," said the soon-to-be National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Famer.

Cole repeated his finisher to give the Mustangs a lead for the first time in the game just after the second quarter began, making the score a more favorable 17-14.

The Chargers evened the score again a few minutes later, but Cole again took the ball, legs churning, for an 8-yard score to give Morningside the lead for good. 

With about five minutes to play before halftime, fans on both sides of the field greeted flashing lights and the whirring of fans on the scoreboard with cheers, as the digits from the night prior's high school game returned to the LED panels and power was restored.

Briar Cliff was next on the now illuminated scoreboard, with another field goal, which Morningside answered with a 10-yard score for Cole just before the half expired.

The Chargers chipped in another field goal early in the second half, but it was Morningside the rest of the way as Joe Dolincheck found Austin Johnson for a 47-yard touchdown pass. 

A pair of interceptions returned for touchdowns shut down Briar Cliff's offense in the third quarter, with Lonell Boyd Jr. returning an interception 95 yards for the score and Dijion Walls following suit with a 27-yard return and six more points. 

The scoring for the day concluded with a 20-yard pass to Zach Norton and another extra point for Carter. The 20-yard pass from Dolincheck marked the end of his day, but also set new Morningside records for career passing yards and total offense, at 14,130 and 14,195, respectively.

Walls had nine solo tackles to lead the Mustangs on defense. Ben Chelsvig followed with six solo tackles, while Josh Miller and Brody Nelson each had five solo tackles. Brayden Cleeton and Brady Schlaeger each got into the BCU backfield to each record a sack in the contest.

Dolincheck's day ended with 402 yards passing, including a long of 47 yards, and two touchdowns. Johnson was the favorite target, as he pulled in 10 catches for 209 yards and a touchdown. Norton followed with seven catches for 79 yards, including the game's final score.

Ryan Cole's four first-half touchdowns were joined on his game stat line with 138 yards on 22 attempts. Bryson Freeberg had seven carries for 21 yards while Ervin Feleti gained 23 yards on his two attempts.

Morningside is off this week, with a trip to Midland University on October 1 following the bye.