Mesa State football dominated New Mexico Highlands Saturday afternoon in Las Vegas, NM scoring at least one touchdown in each quarter and the defense holding the Cowboys to a minus 26 yards rushing.
MSC's 458 total offensive yards included 319 yards rushing on 43 carries. Runningback Joey Applehans had his best day as a Maverick rushing for a career high 179 yards on 17 attempts (10.5 yards per carry), and one touchdown. Applehans' first touchdown this season was a 59-yard run in the first series of the second half.
Defensively the Mavericks allowed just 148 total yards, had four interceptions for 45 return yards recorded seven quarterback sacks. Tony Kelly and Bennett Newton each recorded seven total tackles, including four solo tackles, one sack and two tackles for loss yardage by Kelly. Newton added 1.5 quarterback sack.
Derek Thorne had 2 interceptions on the day. Josh Padilla and Zay Lopez each had an interception with returns of 23 and 42 yards respectively. Chad Benkelman posted a game high 2.0 sacks and Dominique Lewis had 2.5 tackles for a loss of 10 yards.
Redshirt freshman quarterback Robert Felberg had his best day; passing for 136 yards (7 of 11) and two touchdowns and ran for two touchdowns. Felberg scored the first touchdown of the game on a 6-yard run in the first quarter. He scored again (1-yard run) in the second quarter. His two passing touchdowns were to last week's RMAC Player of the Week, Griffin Chernoff, connecting on 22 and 17 yard touchdown completions. Chernoff led all receivers with five receptions for 110 yards and two touchdowns.
Will Halboth finished with 96 yards on 13 carries and a 14-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter.
The well balanced victory included an outstanding performance from redshirt freshman kicker Michael Sweeney. He was a perfect 6 for 6 in PAT's and made his first career field goal in the third quarter on a 35-yard attempt. Sweeney added two more field goals (45, 25) going 3 for 3 on the day.
MSC returns home this Saturday at Noon to host Western New Mexico.
