Millsaps College Athletics

JACKSON, Miss. – The Millsaps football team had #22 Mississippi College sweating in the moccasins well into the fourth quarter tonight, but a few costly penalties and an injury late allowed the Choctaws to come away from Harper Davis Field with a narrow 27-23 win in Backyard Brawl XI.

Mississippi College (1-0) struck first with 9:51 remaining in the first quarter off the heels of a 50-yard touchdown run from Steven Knight to put MC up 7-0. The Majors (0-1) went three-and-out on their next two possessions. The defense, however, came up with a big fourth-down stop on the Choctaw’s last drive of the quarter, stopping a 4th-and-1 from their own 25 to give the offense one more crack at the ball before heading down to opposite field.

The Majors began their first scoring drive with 1:41 remaining in the first and capped it off 45 seconds into the second with a Taylor Russolino field goal from 32 yards that finally got the Majors on the board. The defense stepped up again on the next drive with the Choctaws failing another 4th-down conversion, turning it over to the Majors at the Millsaps 45. Two quick first-down runs from Michael Galatas and Shane Bowser brought the Majors deep into MC territory and on the fourth play of the drive Garrett Pinciotti found Bowser with a screen pass across the middle for six, that coupled with Russolino’s successful extra point gave Millsaps their first lead of the game, 10-7.

MC retook the lead before the end of the half thanks to a 47-yard pass to Tommy Reyer which put the Choctaws back up four, 14-10 at the break. The third quarter was quiet for both teams. In fact, the only time either team had the ball on the other’s half of the field came as a result of a Millsaps interception and a MC fumble.

Once again the Majors’ offense began a drive at the end of the quarter which would see them take the lead in the following quarter as Pinciotti led a march down the field that spanned ten plays and 75 yards to put Millsaps back on top 16-14 with 13:33 left to play after a rare miss on the extra point from Russolino.

The Choctaws wasted no time getting the advantage back, though, as they drove the length of the field in just over a minute to take a 20-16 lead after a missed PAT from Dale Wallace. While the Majors’ response took longer than 54 seconds, they did take the lead for the third time in the game eight plays later off another Pinciotti to Bowser connection, this time for eight yards to give the Majors the 23-20 advantage with just over nine minutes remaining.

Then Coach Pelch’s young team let their heightened emotions get the better of them with back-to-back personal fouls which all but erased a booming 55-yard kickoff from Taylor Russolino that had the Choctaws buried deep in their own territory. After the two 15-yard infractions MC was again knocking on the Majors’ door and kicked it in six plays later to retake the lead for the last time setting the final score at 27-23.

Shane Bowser led the majors’ ground game with 17 carries for 118 yards (110 net). Garrett Pinciotti was 20-of-35 in the air with 219 yards passing and two touchdowns. Defensively Will Hawkins led the way for the Majors with 13 tackles (one for a loss).

The Majors will be on the road next week as they travel to LaGrange, Ga. to take on the LaGrange Panthers for a 1:00 kickoff. They will return to Harper Davis Field on September 18 to open their SCAC title-defense with Austin College, also at 1:00 p.m.