Victories at James S. Malosky Stadium have been extremely hard to come by for visiting Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference clubs since the turn of century, but the University of Sioux Falls found a way to buck that trend Thursday night.

The No. 17 Cougars, despite being held to under 200 yards of total offense, upended No. 10 UMD, 26-7, before an overflow crowd of 5,124. That season-opening triumph not only snapped the Bulldogs' school-record 22-game home winning streak, but it was just their second loss to an NSIC opponent in Duluth in 64 tries going back to October 2000.

"It's disappointing and I felt we let Bulldog Country down," said senior wide out and team captain Nate Ricci. "We just don't lose here."

On the evening's second play from scrimmage, Sioux Falls linebacker Derek Landis returned a UMD fumble 17 yards for a touchdown and the defending NSIC overall champions never looked back. The Cougars added a 40-yard field goal by Stuart Vanden Heuvel and a 1-yard run by Max Mikey later in the first quarter to take a 17-0 lead before the Bulldogs finally responded, recovering a fumble at their own 44-yard line and four plays later getting on the board on Nolan Folkert's one-yard scoring run. Folkert, a 2016 All-NSIC first team offensive lineman and part-time fullback, has now rushed eight times for eight yards and seven touchdowns.

Midway through the third quarter, Jason Towns busted loose for 42 yards and a touchdown off a punt return and Vanden Heuvel capped off the scoring with a field goal from 42 yards out.

The Bulldogs limited Sioux Falls to just 195 overall yards -- the second lowest output by a UMD foes since the 2015 season finale -- 114 of which was generated on the ground by Mickey and his 37 carries.  Junior inside linebacker Gus Wedig and junior strong safety Sam Lynch paced the Bulldogs with eight tackles each while senior free safety Kegan Wirtz forced three fumbles.

 

 

UMD sophomore quarterback Mike Rybarczyk, in his first collegiate start, completed 26 of 50 passes for 228 yards and one pick. He was, however, sacked eight times (the main reason he finished with minus-45 rushing yards) and pressured pretty much the entire night from the Cougars blitz-happy defense. A game-high nine of his completions went to junior wide out Jason Balts.

"It looked like we played a young quarterback tonight," said UMD head coach Curt Wiese, whose Bulldogs last loss at home came against Minnesota State University-Mankato on Sept. 21, 2013. "We did not do a very good job offensively making the adjustments that we needed to on the sidelines."

UMD, which for the third straight season is off to an 0-1 start, will pay a visit to Upper Iowa University next Saturday afternoon in another NSIC interdivision confrontation.

"We just have to bounce back and come back stronger," said Ricci, who finished with five receptions to boost his career catch total to 100 -- only the 13th Bulldog to reach that plateau. "We have to take a little more pride, a litte more effort in practice and learn from our mistakes."