ALLIANCE, Ohio – The No. 2 nationally ranked Mount Union football team opened the 2023 NCAA Division III Football Championship with a 56-14 win over Alfred State in the First Round at home on Saturday.
 
Mount Union (11-0) scored on its first four drives. Senior Tyrell Sanders (Indianapolis, Ind./Pike) started the scoring with a 13-yard touchdown catch from senior Braxton Plunk (Plant City, Fla./Plant City) on the game's opening drive. Sanders has scored in back-to-back games and four of the last five.
 
Alfred State (6-5) answered with a 20-yard pass and catch from Justin Horvath to Jazir Francois to tie it at 7. The Purple Raiders responded with 21-straight points, highlighted by a 25-yard touchdown catch by senior Wayne Ruby (Pembroke Pines, Fla./Charles W. Flanagan), who finished with eight catches for 156 yards and two touchdowns – all game-highs. Graduate student running back DeAndre Parker (Crystal River, Fla./Crystal River), who surpassed the century mark on the ground with a game-high 131 yards, and junior Tyler Echeverry (Naples, Fla./Barron Collier) added touchdown runs from one yard and seven yards out, respectively. Parker now has 13 100-yard games rushing for his career.
 
The Pioneers scored the lone points in the second quarter with another touchdown pass from Horvath, this time to Ben Ba from 15 yards out, however it was all Mount Union for the rest of the game as the Purple Raiders outscored Alfred State 28-0. Parker added another touchdown run, this time from seven yards out. Ruby caught a perfect dime from Plunk for a highlight-reel 61-yard touchdown. Senior Edwin Reed (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla./Dr. Krop) caught a 10-yard pass, followed by senior transfer quarterback TJ Deshields (Beloit, Ohio/West Branch) running it in from six yards for his first touchdown as a Raider.
 
Mount Union outgained Alfred State, 627 to 253 in total yards, including 291 to 136 on the ground.
 
Plunk finished 21 of 32 with 336 yards and four touchdowns for his second-straight game with four passing TDs and over 300 yards passing. Plunk now has 14,338 career passing yards, only behind Mount Union's Bill Borchert (1994-97) who has 14,482 for most all-time in NCAA Division III history.
 
Senior linebacker Mason McMillen (Wadsworth, Ohio/Wadsworth) led the defense with a team-high 13 tackles. Mount Union finished with five sacks, with junior Garet Cramer (Woodsfield, Ohio/Monroe Central), senior Landon Jenkins (Hilton Head, S.C./Hilton Head), junior Von Factor (Fair Haven, N.J./Rumson-Fair Haven), and junior Marcus Jackson (Dallas, Tex./Richardson) all registering a sack. Senior Duke Hill  (Memphis, Tenn./Germantown) and sophomore Kaleb Brown (La Plata, Md./La Plata) both had a half sack.
 
Freshman kicker Deaglan Camron (Fort Myers, Florida/Bishop Verot) continued to be perfect in extra points as he made all eight today.
 
The Purple Raiders will play the Alma College Scots out of the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA), who won 32-17 over DePauw, next Saturday in the NCAA Second Round with a time and location to be determined.