MTU vs. University of St. Thomas

On Saturday, Sept. 10, Michigan Tech lost 32-6 to th University of St. Thomas. St. Thomas scored on their first drive and followed it with a blocked punt that was returned for a touchdown, slowing any momentum that the Huskies had. 

Head Coach Steve Olsen said, “First of all I want to tip my hat to St. Thomas for coming out and playing a fundamentally sound football game.”

Regarding Tech’s game, “From the standpoint of what we need to do better, we’ll go back and look at the film but there were some plays that were jump-ball situations that St. Thomas made plays on, and we didn’t. We also had a blocked punt that just can’t happen. Then they had the fake field goal on us in the fourth quarter, so we’ll move on from it and continue to work hard to improve.”

Michigan Tech’s running game was limited to 97 yards and quarterbacks Steele Fortress and Will Ark combined for 53 passing yards. St. Thomas applied lots of pressure in the backfield and managed three sacks. The Huskies’ opponent’s running back, on the other hand, rushed for 211 of their 231 yards over 23 carries. Their quarterback, Cade Sexauer passed for 91 yards with one touchdown and one interception. 

Michigan Tech started the game by answering St. Thomas’ first touchdown with a field goal kicked by Drew Wyble. Sam Ahern opened the second quarter with an interception, but the drive fell short of any scoring. Saint Thomas then scored on a blocked punt and racked up 20 total points in the second quarter. 

St. Thomas managed 6 more points off of a feigned field goal in the second half, bringing their lead to 32-3. Huskies’ kicker Drew Wyble put up one more impressive 40-yard field goal bringing the score to 32-6, which ended up being the final. 

On the defensive side of things, Marc Sippel led the team with 12 tackles and 2 quarterback hurries. Several other players performed well, but not enough to slow the roll of the Tommies. 

Saturday, Sept 17 the Huskies travel to Wichita Falls to play Midwestern State at Memorial Stadium. Michigan Tech looks to improve their season record to 2-1 with a win against the Mustangs. The game will be played at 8:00 PM EDT and updates can be found on Michigan Tech Football’s social media pages.