Chargers drop first game of season at Michigan Tech

Home Uncategorized Chargers drop first game of season at Michigan Tech
Luke Keller drops back to pass against Michigan Tech
Courtesy | Michigan Tech

Negative offensive yardage in the first half and two fourth quarter touchdowns from Michigan Tech doomed the Hillsdale Chargers this past Saturday as they fell 14-10. 

The game was scoreless until eight seconds left in the third quarter, when Chargers redshirt freshman Julian Lee hit a 20-yard field goal. 

“In the first half Michigan Tech kind of surprised us with what they did,” senior receiver Konnor Maloney said. “So at halftime, our offensive line made a lot of adjustments on blocking schemes. The coaches simplified our offense a little bit just getting back to our basics and thankfully I think some things worked out.” 

Michigan Tech scored on a 43-yard touchdown from junior Will Ark to junior Jordan Janssen with 10 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. Junior quarterback Luke Keller led a 12 play, 70 yard drive to score on a one yard run, giving the Chargers the lead with 4 minutes remaining. Michigan Tech would then come back to score the winning touchdown on a 23 yard pass from Ark to Hunter Richards, with 1:14 remaining. 

After scoring zero points and not converting a first down in the first half, the Charger offense rebounded after halftime, leading to multiple scoring drives. Maloney ended with two receptions for 58 yards, while Keller finished 6-15 for 98 yards and one rushing touchdown.

“We showed up, we jumped right into the game, played a physical team in a physical manner,” head coach Keith Otterbein said. “Overall I think our kids are really focused and played hard.”

Senior defensive back Alex Anschutz, who ended with 10 total tackles, spoke positively regarding the defense. 

“I feel that the biggest strength of our defense is our cohesion,” said Anschutz. “I think that we all play well together and feed off each other’s energy and successes on the field. I think we all embrace our roles and take pride in doing our jobs to generate success as a defense.”

Despite this positivity, Anschutz said that improvement was needed on defense. 

“One thing we are looking to improve upon heading into this next week’s game would be finishing down the stretch especially in the fourth quarter,”  said Anschutz. “Despite that, I would say a general area of improvement would just be to eliminate the mental mistakes and use last week as an opportunity to learn from those mistakes in hopes to prevent them from happening again.”

Looking forward to Saturday’s matchup, Otterbein said he respects his opponents, the University of Indianapolis.

“They’ve been a playoff team traditionally here over recent years,” said Otterbein. “They’re an established program that knows how to win. We’ll certainly have our hands full playing our best football in order to beat them.” 

The Chargers will be playing Saturday’s game at home, which Maloney said is an advantage. 

“It’s super exciting.” said Maloney, “Especially because first game of the year, we normally get a pretty large crowd so its nice to have the fans, the energy there and Muddy Waters stadium, then the night game adds another element to that you know playing under the lights, there’s nothing quite like it.”