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No. 7 CSU-Pueblo shocks Fort Lewis early in 45-9 win

No. 7 CSU-Pueblo gets its revenge year after FLC upset

After waiting a year for revenge against Fort Lewis College, the Colorado State University-Pueblo football team wasted no time to display its dominance.

The No. 7 ThunderWolves scored on a 70-yard touchdown pass to Kieren Duncan on the first play from scrimmage. After three offensive plays, CSU-Pueblo had scored twice, as brothers Bernard and Cameron McDondle plowed through the Skyhawks’ defense for a combined 75 yards in two plays for another score.

The rout was on early, and the ThunderWolves (5-1, 4-0 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) didn’t call off the dogs until the fourth quarter when they led 45-9. That’s how the game would finish, as Fort Lewis (4-2, 3-1 RMAC) suffered its first conference loss of the season.

“Any time you get off to a start like that it’s an uphill battle, particularly against a team as good as they are,” FLC head coach John L. Smith said in a phone interview with The Durango Herald. “You can’t afford it. In fact, it needs to be the exact opposite; you gotta be up a couple on them to have a chance.”

The quick-strike touchdown from freshman quarterback AJ Thompson to Duncan set the tone. The Skyhawks drove down the field on their opening drive thanks to two offsides penalties on the ThunderWolves on fourth-down-and-short situations, but the drive stalled inside the CSU-Pueblo five-yard line and ended with a 21-yard field goal by Kipp Castanha. That score narrowed the deficit to 7-3.

But Cameron McDondle, the leading rusher in all of Division II, ran 58 yards to open the ensuing drive, and Bernard McDondle took it 17 yards the next play for a touchdown that made it 14-3.

Early in the second quarter, Bernard McDondle added a 35-yard touchdown run to make it 21-3. During that drive, Cameron McDondle broke the 1,000 yard mark for the season, becoming the fastest in CSU-Pueblo history to reach 1,000 yards in a season.

Cameron McDondle finished with a season-low 152 rushing yards on 22 attempts, but he played only three quarters. He added two touchdowns, as did Bernard McDondle, who finished with 114 yards on only 15 carries.

“The stats show it. (Cameron McDondle) is the best back in the league, and it showed against us,” Smith said. “We couldn’t tackle him. Our guys bounced right off him.”

In all, CSU-Pueblo rushed for 311 yards to only 78 for the Skyhawks, who were out-gained 454-221 overall.

Fort Lewis’ lone touchdown came near the end of the first half on a 50-yard deep pass from senior quarterback Jordan Doyle to Durango High School alum and junior wide receiver Jordan Gillen. The extra point was missed by Castanha, his first PAT miss of the season, making it 28-9 in favor of CSU-Pueblo at the time.

The Skyhawks forced a Bernard McDondle fumble on the following kickoff, and it was recovered by Theo Chambers on the 30-yard line with 12 seconds to go in the half. But FLC couldn’t capitalize, as the ThunderWolves’ pass rush gave Doyle no time to make a play. FLC went into the locker room down 28-9.

Doyle finished the game 10-of-18 passing for 120 yards and the touchdown. Redshirt freshman Bo Coleman played quarterback for FLC in the fourth quarter and was 4-of-5 for 23 yards.

PJ Hall was held to 31 rushing yards on 14 carries for FLC, as the CSU-Pueblo run defense bottled up the shifty sophomore.

“Their guys are big and strong and brought pressure at us, and we couldn’t run at it,” Smith said. “We didn’t know what to do with it. They lined up and beat us to a pulp.”

AJ Thompson was 7-of-15 passing for the ThunderWolves for 143 yards and two touchdowns, one going to Zach Boyd.

It was a big homecoming win for CSU-Pueblo. A year ago, the Skyhawks shocked the top-ranked ThunderWolves 23-22 in Durango for the team’s lone loss in a Division II national championship season.

FLC now sits in fourth place of the conference standings, with Colorado Mines, Colorado Mesa and CSU-Pueblo all 4-0 in RMAC games.

The Skyhawks will try to bounce back, but it won’t get any easier next week at No. 8 Colorado Mines (6-0, 4-0 RMAC). The Orediggers blasted Western New Mexico 51-24 on the road Saturday.

“Hopefully us coaches and the players learned we need to get better,” Smith said. “We have to prepare better than we did last week. I put it all on preparation, and it’s up to each coach and each player to prepare better than we did this last week.”

jlivingston@durangoherald.com



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