Box Score In the end, the University of Minnesota Duluth walked out of James S. Malosky Stadium Saturday night with its 15th straight season-opening victory in hand -- but it didn't come easy.

The No. 3 Bulldogs took a 20-3 lead into the fourth quarter and then staved off Concordia University-St. Paul's late rally to prevail 20-13 in front of an overflow crowd of 5,287 (the sixth largest in program history) at James S. Malosky Stadium. The win was UMD's 45th in its last 46 NSIC home games and its fifth in a row over the Golden Bears.

"It's the first game, so you never really know what to you're going to get," said junior cornerback UMD Darion Fletcher, who along with junior free safety Daivd Boegel topped the Bulldogs defensively with 12 tackles each (a career-best for both). "When teams go up against us, they usually throw everything in their playbook at us. We made a lot of adjustments during the game, but it worked out pretty well,"

UMD, which never trailed the entire night, sandwiched a pair of Tyler McLauglin field goals (34 and 22 yards) around a 34-yard touchdown run by sophomore quarterback Drew Bauer to go into halftime up 13-10. Bauer later connected with a wide-open Taylor Grant in the end zone from six yards out 3:09 into the second half to make it 20-13 before the Golden Bears struck for 10 points in a span of four minutes in the fourth quarter on quarterback Corey Cole's four-yard run and Tom Obarski's second field goal of the evening. The Bulldogs took the ensuing kickoff with 3:31 to go and eventually ran out the clock, thanks in part to Logan Lauter's 46-yard run. The junior tailback finished with a personal-best 165 yards on just 14 carries while Bauer rushed 15 times for 85 yards for the Bulldogs, who outgained Concordia-St. Paul in total yards (384 to 362), but managed just 15 first downs and 82 yards through the air.

UMD will engage in its first road activity of the young 2014 season next weekend when it pays a visit to Augustana College.




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