ALLIANCE, Ohio – No. 4 ranked Mount Union opened the NCAA Playoffs with a 52-0 shutout win over Washington & Lee (Va.) in a first round game Saturday at Mount Union Stadium.
The Purple Raiders (11-0) advance to the second round where they will face No. 16 ranked Johns Hopkins (Md.), a 45-20 winner over No. 11 ranked Salisbury, next Saturday, Nov. 27 at noon local time at a site to be announced Sunday.
Mount Union junior quarterback
Braxton Plunk (Plant City, Fla.) completed 27-of-37 passes for 368 yards and five touchdown passes over the first three quarters of action. His top target was senior wide receiver
Derrick Harvey, Jr. (Akron / Buchtel), who had a season-best 137 yards on eight catches with two touchdowns. Fellow senior
Wayne Ruby (Miami, Fla. / Flanagan) caught two touchdowns and sophomore
Tyrell Sanders (Indianapolis, Ind. / Pike) hauled down another.
Senior
KJ Redmon (Fairborn) ran for a game-high 75 yards on 11 carries while senior
Josh Petruccelli (Perry) rushed for a score as he had 10 carries for 44 yards.
Washington & Lee (8-3) came into the game averaging 323 rushing yards per game with its option offense but was held to 35 yards on 35 carries by the Mount Union defense. The Raiders held the Generals to 100 total yards as junior
Duke Hill (Memphis, Tenn. / Germantown) had 1.5 tackles for loss and seven tackles.
Josh Breece had 11 rushes for 21 yards for Washington & Lee.
Mount Union went three-and-out on the game's first possession, but the defense dominated the quarter holding the Generals to 10 yards. The Raiders scored on three straight possessions as Plunk threw a pair of TD's to Harvey from 25 and 48 yards then another to Ruby from six yards out and Mount Union was out to a 21-0 lead.
Two more Plunk touchdown passes in the second quarter went to Ruby from 24 yards and Sanders from 26 yards as the defense did not allow W&L to cross midfield and it was 35-0 at the half.
Petruccelli had a two-yard scoring run for the Raiders in the third quarter to push the advantage to 42-0.
The scoring was finished in the fourth quarter with a
Nick Deack (Alliance) 28-yard field goal and a six-yard touchdown run by back-up quarterback
Todd Simonds (Tiffin / Columbian).