For those who enjoy watching great offense, Saturday at Edwards-Maurer Field was the place to be. The Tigers put up a team record 716 yards of offensive production. The Tigers recorded their second straight shutout of the season by beating Oberlin College with a final score of 59-0. The week before, the Tigers tore up DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana with a final score of 45-0. The Tigers were looking to continue their dominance over NCAC opponents this week, which was something they were able to easily accomplish.
In front of a packed family weekend crowd, the Tigers started off the game by pushing the Yeoman’s offense off the field in three plays. This set up a Wittenberg touchdown by way of pass from senior quarterback Reed Florence to wide receiver Brendon Cunningham. From there, the Tigers were on a roll and never looked back. Only forced to punt once, Wittenberg ran wild with this game, which even involved a wide receiver pass from junior Zac Wilson to the quarterback Florence for a 40 yard touchdown. When Florence was throwing the ball he was nearly perfect completing 16 of his 18 passes for 273 yards and three touchdowns. Wittenberg’s rushers also had a great show compiling 362 yards on the ground, led by senior Javanh Sanders who was responsible for 95 of those yards. Sophomores Jimmy Dehnke and Sean Gary each had a touchdown rushing and 76 and 60 yards respectably. Junior Will Stocker also picked up a rushing touchdown on 83 yards total running. Besides Cunningham and Florence, three other players caught touchdown passes in the blowout. Seniors Desi Kirkman and Jonathon Stoner caught passes in the end zone, as did sophomore Armon Murray.
Defensively, the whole team had a great game shutting out Oberlin. The Yeoman’s only real attempt at scoring any points happened in their second drive of the first quarter, where after failing to score in the red zone in three plays, Oberlin elected to kick a field goal which was blocked by Josh Bannick, a sophomore defensive tackle. Bannick, who also took part of six other tackles in the game, and was helped out by junior linebacker Nick Gibson who was involved in nine tackles and senior Spencer Leno who had five. This all led to a bad day offensively for Oberlin, who was only able to account for 77 passing yards and 38 rushing yards as opposed to Wittenberg which had an almost equal 354 passing yards and 362 yards rushing.
This was a big win for the Tigers, who have still been rebounding after their week one lose to Football Championship Division Butler. This takes the team’s record to two wins and one loss. The Tigers play at Hiram next week before meeting in-conference Denison on homecoming Oct. 12 at Edwards-Maurer Field at 1:00 p.m.