Before fans could blink for the second-half kickoff, Jordan Doyle was racing 75 yards down the field to score the game-tying touchdown against the No. 7 team in NCAA Division II.
As fast as the Fort Lewis College football team tied up the game after going in an early 14-0 hole, the Colorado Mines Orediggers raced down the field and let a player from Durango put them up for good with a 26-yard field goal to make it 31-28.
Avery Llewellyn, a 2011 graduate of Durango High School, tacked on another 46-yard field goal to end a Colorado Mines run of 20-unanswered points in the game’s final 29 minutes, 13 seconds of game clock. The result was a 48-28 loss for the Skyhawks, the second in as many weeks to a top-10 opponent after a 3-0 start in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play.
“Forty-eight points kind of tells the story,” Fort Lewis head coach John L. Smith said in a phone interview with The Durango Herald. “We kind of lost it right at the end of the third quarter and all of the fourth quarter. We have to learn to finish.”
Doyle’s running game accounted for three touchdowns for Fort Lewis (4-3, 3-2 RMAC), and he passed for another two-yard score to wide receiver Juquelle Thompson. That touchdown pass helped FLC tie the game at 21 late in the second quarter, but Colorado Mines quarterback Justin Dvorak wasn’t to be outdone, leading a scoring drive before the end of the half to put the Orediggers (7-0, 5-0 RMAC) up 28-21 at the break.
Dvorak, who also torched the Skyhawks for 322 yards and five total touchdowns last season, wouldn’t be slowed down in the second half despite staying on the field after being shaken up from a last-second Hail Mary that fell incomplete at the end of the half. Dvorak took a big hit but showed few signs of it in the rest of the way, finishing 26-of-46 passing for 415 yards, five touchdowns and one interception.
“He’s an awfully good quarterback,” Smith said. “He extends plays, and even when you get to him a time or two he throws the next one for a big strike. We couldn’t stop him.”
Dvorak put the Orediggers up 14-0 through nine minutes of the first quarter with a touchdown pass to Sam Seeton and a 33-yard touchdown strike to Cole Spurgeon.
But the Skyhawks answered with an 11-play, 75-yard touchdown drive capped off of a five-yard Doyle run as the horn sounded at the end of the first quarter.
Four plays into the second quarter, Seeton was off to the races for a 33-yard rushing touchdown to give Colorado Mines a 21-7 advantage.
Doyle responded with another great 76-yard drive, ending it in seven plays on a 20-yard touchdown run to bring the Skyhawks back within a touchdown.
Dvorak once again drove down the field but was intercepted by Fort Lewis cornerback Michael Benabides in the end zone. Dvorak was caught overthrowing his receiver on a slant route in the middle of the field, and Benabides stretched out to snag his third interception of the season.
Doyle methodically led the team down the field for the score to Thompson to tie it at 21. It was Thompson’s seventh touchdown of the season and fifth receiving.
“First half, I was pleased with most of what we did,” Smith said.
Doyle finished the game 19-of-31 passing for a season-high 249 yards. The three rushing scores were his first touchdowns on the ground this year, and he now has nine touchdown passes to only two interceptions.
“I was very pleased with his play up until about the third quarter when we took a sack close to our goal line, and everything went downhill for us from there,” Smith said.
Two missed field goals by FLC placekicker Kipp Castanha limited Fort Lewis’ ability to stay in the game, and Dvorak and Colorado Mines capitalized on every swing in momentum.
Ty Young had 105 yards and a touchdown on five receptions for the Orediggers, and Spurgeon finished with two touchdowns to go with 93 yards.
Seeton had a big all-around game with 161 rushing yards and a touchdown on 28 carries to go with 45 receiving yards and another score on five catches.
FLC was led in rushing by sophomore PJ Hall, who went for 74 yards on 20 carries. Esley Simmons III was the team’s leading receiver with 92 yards on five catches. Thompson added 81 yards and the touchdown on eight receptions.
Defensively, the Skyhawks benefitted from two OJ Thompson sacks.
Llewellyn, a candidate for the Fred Mitchell Award given to the nation’s best kicker in Division I Football Championship Subdivision, Division II, Division II, NAIA and NJCAA, was 2-for-2 on field goals and perfect on all six extra points.
The Skyhawks have now dropped two games in a row after suffering a 45-9 loss at No. 6 CSU-Pueblo a week ago. Those losses snapped a four-game winning streak, and the Skyhawks have another tough test looming at noon Saturday against Colorado Mesa (6-1, 5-0 RMAC)
“It’s huge for us at this point,” Smith said of the game against the Mavericks. “We’ve lost two in a row to real good opponents, and our next opponent is a real good opponent. For us to even be considered in the same talk with the upper-echelon teams in this league, we have to beat one.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
