The Hillsdale College football team came to life in the second half this Saturday, out-scoring the Walsh Cavaliers 28-3 behind sophomore wide receiver Isaac TeSlaa and senior running back Michael Herzog, to complete a 35-17 comeback win in its home opener.

The Chargers improved to 2-0, both overall and in conference play, behind electric performances from TeSlaa and Herzog, who combined for five touchdowns in the win.

Hillsdale’s first home game of the season was a night game, featuring a 7 p.m. kickoff and a rowdy crowd at Frank “Muddy” Waters Stadium. 

“Toward the end, we were able to feed off a lot of the energy created by our home stands as well as by Otter’s army,” senior linebacker Kyle Kudla said. “There was actually a time when one of the play calls on third down, the defensive line couldn’t understand the call because Otter’s army was so loud, and we were right in front of them, it was awesome.”

Hillsdale’s last home night game, last year against Indianapolis, saw TeSlaa reel in six catches for 166 yards and a touchdown.

This year, TeSlaa was on the receiving end of eight of the team’s 12 completed passes on the way to a game-high 189 yards and three touchdowns. His receiving yard total topped all of the Cavaliers’ receivers combined. 

“We were maybe expecting them to start rolling over a safety, but they never did, they just trusted me to go out and make a play one-on-one, and it seemed to work out pretty well,” TeSlaa said. “I do like to tell Luke, ‘you can trust me,’ he does trust me obviously, but I like to plant the seed a little bit too, I probably shouldn’t.”

This season, TeSlaa has already picked up nearly half of the yards, and only two fewer touchdowns, than he did across 12 games last year. The standout game earned TeSlaa the second G-MAC Offensive Player of the Week Award of his career.

Sophomore kicker Julian Lee also earned his second career G-MAC weekly honor, as the Special Teams Player of the Week, for going a perfect 5-of-5 on his extra point attempts.

TeSlaa started the scoring for the Chargers with a 32-yard touchdown on a pass from senior quarterback Luke Keller that tied the score at seven with under five minutes left in the first half.

“Luke’s been putting the ball on him, they’ve developed a really good chemistry,” head coach Keith Otterbein said. “The 32-yard touchdown was an audible on the line of scrimmage based on the look, and he ran a great route.” 

The Cavaliers, however, responded with another touchdown, and were threatening to score again before Kudla picked off a tipped pass as time expired in the first half.

“It was a little too high for him, he tipped it straight up in the air, and fortunately I was shifting over to stay on top of that route, so it fell right into my hands,” Kudla said. “I don’t think you can ask for a much easier interception.”

The Chargers’ next score came on a one-yard touchdown run from Herzog, which capped off the first drive of the second half, and tied the game again, this time at 14-a-piece.

That score marked Herzog’s first collegiate touchdown ever on his way to a career-high 134 yards on 19 carries.

After a 15-play drive from the Cavaliers that took nearly eight minutes of game time, and ended with a field goal, the Chargers, on both sides of the ball, responded in a big way.

Hillsdale finished each of its next three drives in the end zone, forcing two turnovers and a punt in between. 

TeSlaa dominated his matchup, scoring on back-to-back drives, each of which took under a minute of game time. He followed a 26-yard touchdown grab to convert a 3rd and 11 with a 50-yard catch and run on a 50-50 ball from Keller that again ended in the endzone. 

Then up by 11 points, the Chargers began to burn clock, going to the ground game on a five minute, 10-play drive that left less than three minutes on the clock for the Cavaliers.

Herzog finished off that drive and Hillsdale’s scoring for the day, with a powerful, 11-yard run. The senior bounced off would-be tacklers and ran through Cavalier defenders before diving to the goalline for a score.

“He did a tremendous job of getting his pad-level down and keeping the defender off his body, and then just kept his legs churning, he could smell that one,” Otterbein said. “That was an outstanding run, showed a lot of heart on his part.”

The Chargers now look ahead to this Saturday, where they will face off against the Truman Bulldogs. The two programs faced off last year, once in the regular season and once during the American Crossroads Bowl, with the Chargers coming up short each time.

The game will kick off at 1 p.m. in Frank “Muddy” Waters, and will be the last home game for the Chargers until their Homecoming game on Oct 18.

“They’re a very similar type program to ours, it’s like looking in the mirror,” Otterbein said. “Hard nosed, tough kids, play hard, very disciplined, and they’ve got some playmakers, so it’s certainly a big challenge.”

“Third time’s the charm, we played them twice last year and lost both games, but that just means we’ve got more film on them and understand them a little bit more,” TeSlaa said. “We all want to beat them, we kind of got our asses handed to us last year a couple of times, so we want to go get a little bit of revenge.”