MSU football falls to Augustana in first home loss of season
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Minot State University (MSU) fell 20-7 to Augustana at home Saturday afternoon.
The Vikings improved to 4-2 on the year and 4-1 in Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) play, while the Beavers fell to 4-3 overall and 3-3 in conference matchups.
"We've beaten good teams this year, and so we expect to win. I'm disappointed we lost, there's nobody happy in that locker room right now. But we played it close" said Shields. "We're certainly pleased with the progress we've made as a program; we made tremendous progress. We're not going to allow ourselves to feel good about playing close. We're playing to win."
Despite the loss, coach Shields noted the effort was there once again even though the outcome did not favor the Beavers. Instead, it was the Augustana Vikings experience that showed out in a battle-tested atmosphere compared to MSU who dealt with some adversity trying to overcome early penalties.
"We're the least penalized team in the nation coming into today's game with 17 penalties all season. We got called for 8 penalties today. That's out of character for us," said Shields. "That's where the bar is set in this conference, when you look at the standard conference championship playoff teams...we played hard, at times played well. We're just inconsistent. We did some things that were uncharacteristic of us all season."
Carson Chrisman paced the Beavers rushing attack by accumulating 71 yards and one touchdown over the course of the game, averaging 5.9 yards per carry. Evan Lovett also added 41 yards on the ground, averaging 4.1 yards per carry.
Jonathan Noriega hauled in two catches for 47 yards. Cody Raetzman and Logan Rouse tallied 6 tackles each for the Beaver defense. Kevin Speed, Noah Iosefa, and Deshawn Carter all recorded 1 TFL in the loss.
Defensively, Minot State held up well against the Augustana offensive attack, holding the Vikings to 349 total yards. The Beavers managed to keep the Augustana offense at bay within a manageable deficit, but ultimately fell short as the Vikings took care of business.
"I'm proud of the fighting, the effort. That's an established program, a veteran team with a lot of talent on the roster, so I thought we did a lot of great things to be proud of," Shields remarked. "To hang with the defending conference champs is tough to do as the Beavers continue to seek improvement throughout the rest of the season."