Box Score Havre, Mont. - Mayville State University Football kicked off their 2023 season in Big Sky country taking on Montana State - Northern Saturday afternoon. The last match up between the Comets and the Skylights was in 2018, where Northern won 49-20.
The offense wouldn't be as active today on either side of the ball as the Comets drop the game 14-0. Head coach
Rocky Larson said, "Overall we have to clean up offensive line play and limit our mistakes."
"We have to be able to protect our QB," stated Larson, "our run game couldn't get going and we had to turn into a drop back pass team." Jr. All-American Honorable Mention quarterback,
Tim Salmon went 15-32 for 132 yards.
The Comets defense was on point from the first drive of the game when
Gunnar Jorgensen forced and recovered a fumble. Neither offense could gain any traction until a 35-yard punt return gave the Skylights a short field and eventually put the ball into the end zone for a 7-0 lead.
Once again both offenses were stymied until late in the third when the Skylights intercepted a pass and got down to the Comets 8-yard line. MSUN was able to punch it in from there to boost their lead to 14-0. Unfortunately, the Comets just couldn't get any momentum on offense and the game finished with the same 14-0 score.
Offensively the key stat was 0 for 7 on 4
th down conversions. The decisions were more than reasonable, as all of them were in MSUN territory, the Skylights just came up clutch on those situations.
Daniel Nevil and
Xyler Carlson both ended with 45 yards total offense.
The Comets defense shined as they allowed only 191 total yards and forced two turnovers.
Richard Shelton led the defense with eight tackles, followed by
Bailey Mullenberg with seven, including three tackles for loss.
Kaden Johnson picked off a Skylight pass and Jorgenson forced and recovered a fumble.
"I do think our defense gave a great effort overall. Northern scored on two short fields but our defense played very hard today," Coach Larson stated. "From fall camp to now our defense has seen the most improvement. We tackled well all day today and we were flying over the field making plays."
Next up the Comets will travel to Dickinson, N.D. to take on 2023 NSAA Conference Champs and No. 19 ranked Dickinson State University on Saturday, September 2nd, at 2:00pm (CT). When asked about prepping for DSU this week, Larson stated, "This week, we need to get healthy and get back to the drawing board and find some answers."
For full schedule information visit
https://msucomets.com/sports/football/schedule
