After taking a 13-point lead into halftime, the Hillsdale Chargers football team gave up 21 unanswered points to the Truman State Bulldogs, dropping its first out-of-conference game of the season.
The Chargers were unable to recapture momentum after a difficult start to the second half, and now fall to 2-1 overall, though they remain undefeated in G-MAC play.
The Bulldogs started the second half with a 17-play, 88-yard drive that took nearly 10 minutes off the clock. It ended with the team’s first score, and changed the dynamic of the game.
“They had that long drive, we had some chances to get off the field, but we kind of got tired a little bit,” head coach Keith Otterbein said. “I think our defense lost a little bit of focus, and we weren’t able to help with the offense by staying on the field, so a double whammy there.”
Hillsdale had used a balanced attack to dominate the first half of play. They opened up the game’s scoring with a 25-yard touchdown strike from fifth-year senior quarterback Luke Keller to freshman wide receiver Sam Lee.
“He’s done a good job as a young kid picking up on what we’re trying to accomplish,” Otterbein said. “He’s talented and we’re excited to get him in the mix. He adds another weapon that doesn’t allow teams to focus on Isaac.”
With under eight minutes to go in the second quarter, sophomore defensive back Jackson Gillock stepped in front Truman quarterback Nolan Hair’s pass and grabbed his first interception of the season, setting the Charger offense up with a short field.
The Chargers worked their way down to the ten, where Keller found sophomore wide receiver Isaac TeSlaa who stretched out for the pylon and picked up his nation-leading sixth touchdown of the season, putting the team up 13-0. TeSlaa finished with the game with 49 yards on five catches, keeping him near the top of the nation’s receiving yards leaderboard, tied for third with 395 yards.
“We want to spread the ball around, we don’t want to be predictable as an offense, but at the end of the day, Isaac’s a great player, he’s gonna make plays,” Keller said. “If teams double-cover him, it’s only going to work to our advantage, because that opens up the run game and opens up other receivers.”
Hillsdale’s defense put together another stop before halftime, and went into the locker room pitching a shutout.
“Obviously the first half was really good for us,” sophomore defensive lineman Riley Tolsma said. “That was a really good team, so the fact that we could have a half like that, it’s good.”
Tolmsa led the Chargers with a career-high 2.5 of the team’s four total sacks.
Truman, however, came out of halftime a different team, taxing the Chargers defense with a long touchdown drive. By the time the Chargers first touched the ball in the second half, less than five minutes remained in the third. Hillsdale’s offense went three-and-out, its only three offensive plays of the third quarter.
The Chargers’ defense had less than two minutes of game time to rest between drives. Truman’s offense took advantage, driving 46 yards in 7 plays to take a 14-13 lead. Another Truman touchdown off of a short field in the middle of the fourth effectively put the game away.
“A loss is frustrating, we want to go into every single game thinking that we’re going to win and we want to come out on top,” Keller said. “But at the end of that day, it’s not a conference opponent, so it’s not going to hinder our goal of winning a G-MAC Championship.”
After two weeks of outsourcing opponents in the second half – especially the fourth quarter – the team posted its first scoreless fourth of the season.
“Truman elevated their play in the second half and we’ve got to match that,” Otterbein said. “We’ve got to find that next gear. When somebody elevates their game like Truman did, we’ve got to be able to dig a little deeper and execute better in order to match a good team that knows how to win.”
The team will be on the road this week in Missouri against the Missouri S&T Miners for another out-of-conference matchup. It will be the first of two straight road night games, each with 6 p.m. kickoff times. The Miners are 1-2 on the season and coming off of a 6-11 loss to Kentucky Wesleyan.
“We don’t want to let an early-season loss defeat us or bring us down for the rest of the season,” Keller said. “We just want to learn and grow from it and use that to boost our confidence and get us ready to keep going the rest of the season.”