The No. 8 ranked Snow College football team bounced back after a regular season loss to defeat ASA-Miami on the road, 45-3, Saturday.
The Badgers suffered their first regular season loss in two seasons against Iowa Western, 14-17, on Oct. 9.
Snow scored the first 31 points of the game, then added 14 more points to cruise to an easy victory over ASA-Miami Silver Storm.
“Honestly I wasn’t sure what to expect,” said Snow’s Coach Zac Erekson. “We had bad weather and not the best practice this week. I expected us to bounce back and play strong, but I wasn’t completely sure.”
To start the game, the Badger defense held ASA-Miami to one first down and then a punt which gave Snow good field position at their own 38-yard line. They were able to work their way into field goal territory before the drive stalled and the Badgers settled for a 37 yard field goal by Stockton Lund to go up 3-0.
The defense held again and the offense got even better position starting at midfield. This time the Badgers took it into the end zone on a 2-yard run by Carsen Manookin to make it 10-0 Snow College.
“We had some players banged up for this trip,” said Erekson. “Gabe Sweeten had a concussion, Seth Kaelin rolled and ankle, Targhee Lambson has turf toe. All but Sweeten made the trip, but it was nice to not need them this afternoon.”
Manookin got the start for the Badgers and added a 27 yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter to lead the rushing attack. Sione “John-John” Molisi also had a good outing scoring the final touchdown of the game on a 14-yard scamper.
“As a coach I can’t tell you how great it is to know that you have any of four running backs that can come in the game and have the impacts that they do,” said Erekson. “We don’t lose anything when we go deep with our backs.”
Tommy McGrath threw three touchdown passes: one to Dionte Davis for 65 yards; one to Marquis Montgomery for 10 yards; and one to Caden Leggett for 21 yards with less than a minute remaining in the first half.
The only setbacks the Badgers faced was a fumble on their first drive in the second half and an interception on their last.
“We obviously still have some things to work on,” said Erekson. “We had a couple of penalties and the turnovers that need to be cleaned up; but overall I’m happy to get this team back with a win and hopefully we can get some momentum and get back into the playoff picture.”
No. 4 ranked Trinity Valley College suffered a loss to unranked Blinn College, which should provide and opening for the Badgers to move up at least one spot in the rankings. Snow College will be on the road again this week when they face Kilgore College in Texas. Kilgore was ranked in the top 15 before losing last week to Cisco College. Kilgore has an extra week to prepare for Snow because of a bye this week.
