Turnovers and special team’s mistakes were pivotal in the 41-20 home loss to the Findlay Oilers as the Hillsdale Chargers football team dropped to 4-4 overall.

The Chargers gave up 31 points between the second and third quarters, leading to the team’s third loss in its last four games. Their now 3-3 in-conference record moves the Chargers to fifth in the G-MAC.

“I don’t think we did a great job of adjusting our blocking to what they were doing, we weren’t making the kind of adjustments that we needed to make that are pretty standard adjustments for us,” head coach Keith Otterbein said. “We started, I guess, seeing ghosts a little bit and not locking in on the guys that we were supposed to block.”

Despite producing more than 300 total yards of offense, the team was just 1-of-12 on third down.

“I feel like we get ourselves into a lot of third-and-longs, and it’s tough to convert on third-and-longs because the defense can just play the sticks and not let you get a first down,” sophomore wide receiver Isaac TeSlaa said.

TeSlaa finished with six catches for 107 yards and two touchdowns, each game-highs. He stays just shy of the nation’s lead for touchdown receptions, caught in a five-way tie for second place with 11 on the season. He is also sixth in the nation in receiving yards, with 915.

“I thought I did alright, it’s not really about me though, I’d rather have everyone get the ball and make plays,” TeSlaa said. “I played how I was supposed to play, I would say, not too special.”

The Chargers’ first drive of the game ended in a 46-yard touchdown pass from senior quarterback Luke Keller to TeSlaa, though a missed extra point kept the score 6-0. 

After 10 straight points from the Oilers, the Chargers re-took the lead with another Keller-to-TeSlaa connection, this time from 26 yards out. That was, however, the last time Hillsdale scored until less than nine minutes remained in the game. 

Four Oiler touchdowns — including one on a blocked punt recovery — and a field goal as time expired in the first half, made up the team’s 31 straight points. 

“For whatever reason, we couldn’t make the key play in the key situation,” Otterbein said. “It always seemed like we were there and ready to get it, and bad things happened.”

Sophomore kicker Julian Lee’s missed extra point, 112 yards in punt returns by the Oilers, and a blocked punt that turned into a touchdown late in the third quarter made for a difficult day for the Chargers’ special teams unit.

“We take a lot of pride in our special teams and we had opportunities on our punt team to make tackles and I think we have up to 80-plus yards in them picking the ball up on punts after the ball hit the ground,” Otterbein said. “The one long punt return right before halftime cost us three points, it’s 80-90 yards of field position; that costs us.”

Senior defensive back Julius Graber led the Charger’s defense with 10 tackles, one of four Hillsdale defenders with at least eight tackles. 

“We started off strong, which has been kind of 50-50 so far this season,” Graber said. “Unfortunately, if we start off in a relatively strong manner, it seems like we can’t keep that going.”

According to Otterbein, when the play goes as the coaches drew it, the team does a good job in all of its phases, while it is in the times “mayhem occurs” during a play that the team needs to react on the fly better.

“I really have come to see that more and more as the season has gone on,” Graber said. “Communication, that’s the big thing, when everybody’s communicating well, that is when things do go the right way. I can think off the top of my head several times where not everybody’s on the same page, and that’s when those big plays happen.”

The team will now look ahead to the undefeated Ashland Eagles for a 1 p.m. home kickoff. After beating Tiffin last weekend, the Eagles remain the only team in the G-MAC without a loss.

“We’ve unfortunately grown to become a bit of an excuse-making team, and you know what, nobody cares about the excuses, just go out and forget about that and play hard anyway,” Graber said. “Going into this game, we have nothing to lose, all the pressure is on Ashland, so we’ll go out and play as well as we can and try to create havoc and mess up their game plan.”