Fort Lewis College football’ offensive performance was abysmal, as the Skyhawks fell 39-0 to No. 13 Colorado State University-Pueblo at the Neta and Eddie DeRose ThunderBowl on Saturday afternoon in Pueblo.
The Skyhawks put up a season-low 72 yards of total offense while their defense gave up 358 in the shutout loss. Senior wide receiver Ta’Jon Mondy-Smith was the Skyhawks’ leading passer, as the wide receiver playing the wildcat position, also ran for 14 yards. FLC senior quarterback Nick McNamee attempted just one pass, and it was intercepted and was almost returned for a touchdown.
Skyhawks’ head coach Joe Morris thought the ThunderWolves made it tough on them and they had earn every yard.
“They’re a dang good football team and they’ve got a tremendous defense and they do a tremendous job of coaching over there,” Morris said. “We’re really banged up and we’re playing some different guys in different spots and it made it tough to move the ball at times.
The Skyhawks were led by Brayden Lucero, who had 37 yards rushing on 14 attempts and averaged 2.4 yards per play. Fort Lewis completed just five first downs all afternoon.
In the first quarter, ThunderWolves kicker Mitchell Carter went 3-of-3 on field goal attempts, as he made kicks from 36, 32 and 30 yards out. The ThunderWolves added a safety to make it 11-0 at the end of the first quarter. The ThunderWolves added two more scores off of long drives in the second, as Bernard McDondle scored on a 9-yard which went five plays, 42 yards. The other long score came with 4:28 remaining in the half when Preston Guerra scored on a 24-yard rush, which capped off a 10-play, 82-yard drive that took nearly four minutes off of the clock. The ThunderWolves led 25-0 at halftime.
The second half was a similar story, as the ThunderWolves scored once in the third quarter and once in the fourth to put the already out-of-hand game on ice.
Junior defensive back Duane Jones Jr. led the Skyhawks on defense with 12 tackles including nine solo and 2.5 tackles for loss.
Morris said the next few weeks will be something like they’d work on during the preseason.
“We’re going to treat it kind of like you would spring ball,” Morris said. “We’re going to use these practices to get a lot of our underclassmen a lot of reps, give those seniors a chance to get healthy and get ready for South Dakota Mines.”
Fort Lewis will have a bye next week and will end the season against South Dakota School of Mines & Technology at 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 10 in Rapid City.
bploen@durangoherald.com
