Both Tiffin University and Northwood University entered Saturday's contest winless in the GLIAC. With the Timberwolves emphasizing almost exclusively their rushing attack and the Dragons resting their hopes on their passing game under the direction of backup Dan PItts, something had to give.
Northwood picked up the narrow 20-10 victory, negating the best defensive showing of the season by the Dragons. With the win, Northwood improves to 2-5 overall, 1-5 GLIAC while Tiffin continues the search for their first victory (0-7, 0-6).
Tiffin opened scoring at 9:45 of the first quarter when Seth Pekoe capped a 11 play, 57 yard drive with a 31 yard field goal.
Northwood answered on their next possession when Alex Faust drilled a 38 yard field goal to make it 3-3.
Northwood continued their rushing attack, with Cameron Jackson banging through the line and leading the Timberwolves on a 10 play, 80 yard drive ending in a 1-yard run at 11:50 of the second quarter to make it 10-3, NU.
Jackson racked up 213 yards rushing in the game on 34 carries, helping to move the ball for Northwood after a Pitts interception. NU moved into field goal range and Faust booted a 26 yard field goal with 8:05 left in the half to give Northwood a 13-3 halftime advantage.
Throughout the second half, Northwood continued to rush the ball, gaining yardage and eating up the clock but failing to score as the TU defense would make strong stands on their end of the field or force turnovers. TU forced 3 Northwood fumbles along with an interception to keep their hopes alive.
With 12:01 left in the game, TU struck gold, as Marcus Beaurem hauled in a 37 yard TD pass from Pitts to make it 13-10.
The defense continued to make big stands, as Carlton Watkins intercepted a Aaron Shavers pass to kill one Northwood drive, and Michael Gomez stuffed a fourth-down attempt by NU to end another threat.
Offensively, however, the Dragons could not capitalize, as Pitts was sacked 5 times in the game to go along with 3 interceptions. He did connect on 22 of 34 passes for 223 yards, but it wasn't enough.
Tiffin tried to make one more stand with 2:34 left, but on fourth-and-one from the TU 30 yard line, Jackson broke free and put the game out of reach with a 30 yard TD run.
Northwood had 23 first downs to TU's 14, while outgaining TU on the ground 335-18. Overall offense had NU ahead 367-241, while NU also had a strong time of possession edge of nearly 12 minutes (35:57 - 24:03).
Beaurem was the prime recipient of Pitts' passing, hauling in 10 catches for 84 yards. Brendton Williams had 4 catches for 71 yards, while Obadiah Dykes had 25 yards and Bertram Marks added 24 more receiving yards.
Defensively the Dragons put up their best numbers of the season, with Collard totaling 14 tackles with a tackle for loss, a forced fumble and a recovery. Kody David had 13 tackles with 3 for loss of 16 yards, a forced fumble and recovery. Rafael Cuellar was also in double figures with 11 tackles, with a tackle for loss, a forced fumble and a recovery.
Other defensive standouts included Gomez with 8 tackles, Dewon Tufts with 8 tackles and a tackle for loss, Theron Carter with 8 tackles, and Logan Snell with 6 tackles and a tackle for loss. Jonathan Hunt also had 2 tackles for loss.
