After being held pointless on its first two possessions of the afternoon, the University of Minnesota Duluth unleashed an offensive blitz that included 28 second-quarter points, an eye-popping 458 first-half total yards and six consecutive touchdown drives and went on to rout the University of Mary 45-0 Saturday afternoon in Bismarck, N.D.
Junior quarterback
Drew Bauer threw for four touchdowns and a season-high 280 yards to lead the No. 21 Bulldogs to their 23rd straight Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference North Division victory and improve to 5-2 on the year. Bauer, who also ran for one other touchdown, put an exclamation point on UMD's dominating first half by hooking up with senior wide out
Justin Fowlkes on a personal-best 80-yard scoring strike with 28 seconds to go before the break that put the Bulldogs up 35-0. UMD extended that lead to 42-0 two minutes into the third quarter on junior running back
Darren Walker's 38-yard touchdown reception and closed out the scoring with 1:03 to play in that same quarter when senior placekicker
Andrew Brees nailed the longest field goal in program history-- a 57-yarder. That was two yards better than the previous mark set by David Nadeau four years ago at the very same field (Community Bowl).
UMD, which is now a perfect 9-0 lifetime against Mary (outscoring them 404-127 in the process), finished with 281 yards on the ground and a near-equal 289 yards passing for a 2015-high 570 yards of total offense. Freshman running back
Jamiah Newell led all UMD rushers (some eight in all) with 95 yards and one toucdown on 14 carries while sophomore backup quarterback
Nate Ricci ran 10 times for 75 yards. Bauer completed nine of 16 passes before being relieved by Ricci in the third quarter.
The UMD defense held Mary (0-7) just 217 overall yards en route to posting its first shutout win since Nov. 15, 2014 (56-0 over Minot State University). Twenty nine different Bulldogs had a hand in at least one tackle, including junior inside linebacker
Beau Bates and freshman safety
Sam Lynch, who both paced UMD with six stops.
The Bulldogs will be back at James S. Malosky Stadium next Saturdau (Oct. 24) to take on the University of Minnesota Crookston.
