Box Score EPHRAIM -- The Snow College Badgers' football ship is headed the right direction. The Badgers were on the road Saturday night to open the 2014 season with a conference game at Mesa Community College in Arizona and came home with a thunderous 59 - 21 win. Their 59 points were the more than the Badgers scored in any game last year, and was the most they had scored since beginning the 2012 season with back-to-back 60 point games.
A high-scoring first period saw Snow score on the first offensive play of the game when Badger quarterback
Alex Kuresa hit Arlonzo Simpson for a 50-yard touchdown with only 19 seconds gone in the game. The quick strike was set up by a 47-yard return of the opening kickoff by Snow sophomore
Eric Takenaka.
The Badger defense held Mesa for a three-and-out to open its season, and Takenaka returned the Thunderbirds' punt 28 yards to set up the Badgers with another short field at the Mesa 28. Following a run for a two-yard loss and an incomplete pass, Kuresa took off on 30-yard ramble to score a second Badger touchdown with only 1:18 off the clock. "Alex is a true double-threat," said Snow head coach Britt Maughan. "He can make big plays both passing and running." Kuresa's passing and rushing TD's to open the game came on his first pass and first run ever as a Badger.
Mesa got things going, scoring on its next two possessions to knot the score at 14 with 9:14 still on the clock in the first quarter. Kuresa scored came back to score on a 14-yard run, putting Snow back ahead for good at 21-14 with just over eight minutes left in the opening period.
Snow added 10 points in the second period, on a third TD run by Kuresa from nine yards out and a 27-yard field goal off the foot of
Conner McRae. The Badgers' 31 points were more than they scored in any complete game during the first seven weeks of last season.
The teams traded scores in the third quarter, with Snow scoring on a three-yard pass from Kuresa to
Cody Scott and Mesa's Austin Apodaca throwing 15 yards to Dusty Cook near the end of the period.
Leading 38 - 21 heading into the final period, Snow turned on the gas to score three more touchdowns to make the final score 58 - 21. Kuresa ran for a fourth touchdown early in the final period before being pulled for
Thomas Jewell who completed three-of-four passes for the Badgers for 40 yards. Takenaka capped off a big game by returning an interception 100 yards for the Badgers' final score of the game. Takenaka had two of the Badgers' three interceptions of Apodaca.
Kuresa finished with 225 yards passing and 87 yards rushing in his debut as a Badger, connecting on a pair of throwing touchdowns while running for four more scores. Sophomore running back
Louie Hamilton ran for 103 yards on 17 carries. Twelve different Badgers caught passes, led by
Stephen Shepard who pulled in three passes for 43 yards and also rushed for 43 yards on 13 carries including a two-yard touchdown in the final period.
Snow had a balanced offense, with 265 yards passing and 249 rushing for 514 yards of total offense. The win represented the second most points Snow has ever scored against Mesa, topped only by the 65 - 20 drubbing it handed the Thunderbirds in 2008. "It was a good start to the season," Maughan said, "But we need to get better at blocking and tackling. If we do that, we will continue to progress."
The Badgers take a week off before hosting two of the top teams in the Western States Football League, Arizona Western and Scottsdale, in back-to-back weeks on Sept. 6 and 13. Arizona Western opened with an impressive 45 - 10 win over New Mexico Military on Saturday, while Scottsdale will open its season by hosting Arizona Western this Saturday. Mesa plays this weekend at Glendale which opened on Saturday with a 28 - 0 shutout of Eastern Arizona.
