As time expired Saturday afternoon at Malosky Stadium, Minnesota State University Moorhead scored a touchdown and then pulled off a successful two-point conversion to stun the No. 19 University of Minnesota Duluth football team at home by a score of 30-29.
On a day where UMD retired Reed Ryan's number and hosted its 11th annual Military Appreciation Day in front of 5,221 fans, UMD outscored the Dragons in the first three quarters combined and owned a 19-14 lead ahead of the fourth quarter. But MSUM threw two touchdown passes and outscored the Bulldogs 16-10 in the final frame to end UMD's second-longest winning streak in program history (20 games), a streak that had extended all the way back to 1999.
Graduate kicker Curtis Cox put the Bulldogs on the board first with a 47-yard field goal 11:37 into the opening quarter. The Dragons responded with their first touchdown of the game with 3:35 left, but it took UMD just 2:23 later on five plays and 80 yards to punch in its first TD of the day. It came in the form of redshirt junior quarterback Kyle Walljasper finding junior DaShaun Ames on a nine yard pass, and after Cox drilled a 25-yard kick at the 11:40 mark of the second quarter – the lone offense for either team in the second quarter – UMD owned a 13-7 lead at half.
Midway through the third quarter, MSUM quarterback Jack Strand threw a TD pass to Brady Perryman, but again the Bulldogs responded at the 3:34 mark, a march of 52 yards on 14 plays that took just 1:57 and ended with redshirt sophomore RB Derrick Johnson's three-yard TD catch from Wallpaper to retake the 19-14 lead. Then, after UMD's Jarret Bennett blocked a punt that was recovered by Jacob Mogensen on the Dragon's nine yardline, Cox was able to hit a 40-yd FG to stretch the Bulldog lead to 22-14.
Walljasper found Ames for a second TD on the day – and third in two games – at the 6:13 mark of the fourth, a 14-yd connection to make it a 29-14 contest. But the MSUM combination of Strand to Perryman pulled the Dragons within a single score (29-22) with 3:01 remaining
Ames ran a 27-yd reverse into the endzone at 1:51, but the TD was erased by a holding penalty. A missed UMD 40-yd field goal with 1:33 left gave the ball back to the Dragons on their 23, and Strand found Luke Imdieke as the fourth quarter expired to draw MSUM within a single point at 29-28. Instead of kicking a field goal and forcing the game into extra time, the Dragons were successful on the two-point conversion for the 30-29 upset – MSUM first win over the Bulldogs in two and half decades.
UMD had 485 total yards of offense, while the Dragons recorded 412. The Bulldogs outrushed MSUM 152 to -6, but the Dragons outgunned UMD in the air, putting up 418 yards of offense compared to the 333 yard effort of Walljasper and company.
Walljasper's most prolific target in the ballgame was Ames, who caught six passes for 98 yards and two scores. Senior WR Jimmy Durocher hauled in five balls for 80 yards, while the Bulldogs also got 76 receiving yards from redshirt freshman wide receiver Ryder Patterson in the contest. On the ground, UMD's Johnson totaled 51 yards to lead the ground attack in addition to his TD – the first of his collegiate career.
On the other side of the ball, redshirt junior DB Zach Wallace recorded his first career interception, and Drew Hennessey added three tackles, 2.5 TFL, and 2.5 sacks in the game. Hennessey's 2.5 sack effort now puts him just .5 sacks away from UMD's all-time career sack top-10 list. The graduate DB is sitting at 16.5 career sacks, just one out of the 17 needed to crack into the list. The Bulldogs had two players with more than eight tackles in the contest, led by senior DB Jacob Mogensen, who had nine. Redshirt junior DB Alex Sylvester had a team-high six solo tackles and eight overall in the game.
The Dragons, led by Strand and his 418 yard, four touchdown afternoon, are now 1-1 overall and 1-1 in Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference play.
UMD (1-1, 0-1) will go on the road next weekend to Bismarck, ND where they will face the University of Mary next Saturday. Game-time is set for 2:00 p.m.
BULLDOG NOTES: Saturday was just UMD's second loss on Military Appreciation Day and first since 2017 … while the Bulldogs had a 20-game winning streak snapped by MSUM, their program longest winning streak is against the University of Wisconsin-Superior, a 27-game effort that lasted until the program was dismantled in 1992 … Moorhead was 5-of-7 on fourth down conversions, while UMD went 0-for-1 … the Bulldogs were a perfect 5-of-5 in the redzone, while the Dragons punched in 4-of-5 … UMD was called for nine penalties (79 yds), compared to just three against MSUM that totaled 29 yards.
