Upset City

You have to give coach Jeff Filkovski of the Batting Bishops of North Carolina Wesleyan credit.  He has done everything he can to play the top notch competition so far this season.  They opened the season against Stevenson a team that now is number 20 in D 3 football.  The second week they brought in the number one team in D 3 Mount Union.  Today's foe Huntingdon rank 15th and scoring 55 points per game is in the Wesleyan house.

The Hawks came right out and had the look of a team that could score in the 50's as they took just over two minutes to score with the opening drive on a 47 yard toss by quarterback Luke Bailey to Nick Haas to lead 7-0 after the extra by Chase Young.

The Bishops responded on their opening drive and scored on a Gerrel Patton one yard dive. Chris Richardson tied it at 7. The Hawks scored on their second tried at 2:39 of the first when JaMichael  Bibb caught a 17 yard td catch  and the Hawks are rolling. It took the Battling Bishops 12 seconds to tie the score as Malik Adam took the kickoff 92 yards and both teams have 14 points each and it is still the first quarter.

The second quarter the Bishops scored twice and they got two big picks on defense and the second by Bobby Tucker was in the end zone. The Bishops scores came from Gerrell Patton 15 yard score at 14-54 in the half and Malik Adams scored for the second time when he corralled a 3 yard pass from Nathan Gardner to make the score 28-14 at the half.

Half time USA South conference Commissioner Tom Hart presented the Battling Bishops with the Men's President Cup signifying North Carolina Wesleyan as the best mens sports program during the 2015-2016 sports season.

The Bishops came right out of the locker room and pushed their lead to 21 when Andrew Tyson snatched a 12 yard pass from Nathan Gardner to push the lead to 35-14 with 11:44 in the third.  The Hawks cut it to 14 and then seven after John Iwanick scored on a five yard run and again on a quarterback rub by Luke Bailey to cut the lead to 35-28. A Bishops field goal ended the third quarter at 38-28.

Both Defenses held each other to a field goal in the fourth but after the Hawks cut the lead to 38-31 the Bishops had a touchdown called back and a field goal taken off the board after the Hawks roughed Bishops kicker Chris Richardson.  The score was then 38-31 and had just over three minutes left when the Bishops used two more minutes off the clock when they settled for the final field goal with 38 second left to cushion the lead to the final 41-31.

The Hawks had 532 yards of offense while the Bishops just 429.  It was the first conference loss after winning their last nine for the Hawks.  The win sends the Bishops tied for the lead to Maryville the team picked for second in the USA South.  Not only have the Bishops. Played the meat of their schedule early but now faced the other team picked ahead of Bishops.