San Antonio – Trinity's football team opened up its 2021 spring season with a 35-24 Southern Athletic Association victory over Austin (TX) College on Saturday afternoon. Trinity and Austin were playing their first games of the SAA campaign, after the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled the fall season and postponed play until the spring.

The Rundown

Austin struck first on its second drive of the game, taking advantage of a missed field goal by the Tigers. The 12-play drive covered 80 yards and the 7-0 lead held after the opening quarter of action.

After coming up empty on its first two drives, Trinity finally got on the board with its own 80-yard drive. Chris Stewart's 34-yard run keyed the six-play drive, which finished with Tucker Horn hitting Austin Bertness on back-to-back plays – including the eight-yard score that tied the game.

Defenses dominated the final 10 minutes of the second quarter as the offenses had four more punts and a pair of drives that yielded negative yardage. The teams reached halftime deadlocked in a 7-7 tie.

The second-half kickoff sailed high in the sky and the Tigers lost it in the sun, allowing Austin College to pounce on it and take over at the Trinity 20 yard line. The 'Roos were held to just a field goal, but still took the lead at 10-7 less than a minute into the third quarter.

Fortunately Trinity had a resounding response, going 82 yards over 14 plays to take a 14-10 lead. The Tigers had an interception in the end zone negated by a holding penalty, then Wyatt Messex connected with Caleb Crawford for the go-ahead score.

After Austin punted on its next drive, the visitors also stopped Trinity's offense and forced a punt. The ensuing snap was low and the punter's knee touched the ground trying to pick it up. The Kangaroos took full advantage of the mistake, reclaiming the lead just two plays later to make it a 17-14 game by the end of the quarter.

Trinity scored three straight fourth-quarter touchdowns, though, stringing together drives of 55+ yards each time to run out to a 35-17 lead with just 76 seconds to play. Messex finished off the first of those drives with a 10-yard strike to Bertness to put Trinity in front for good. The duo hooked up for another score to cap the next drive – this time from nine yards out. Justin Carmouche capped the day's scoring for the Tigers with a three-yard touchdown - the first of his young career.

Trinity's defense had crucial sacks to end Austin's first two drives of the fourth quarter, setting up the Tiger offensive display. The final score of the game for Austin came with just 26 seconds left and the game out of reach.

Notable Numbers

Trinity outgained Austin College 482-221 in the game, including a Tiger defensive effort that allowed just -3 yards rushing in the game. The defense also recorded 3.0 sacks and 9.0 tackles for loss in the game. The negative rushing yards is the best performance by a Trinity defense since holding Southwestern (TX) University to -21 yards rushing in 2015.

James Ogunrin made the most of his collegiate debut, leading Trinity with 10 tackles that included his first career sack.

Caleb Harmel finished with eight tackles, two tackles for loss, and a pair of pass breakups. Campbell Miller had seven stops that included 2.5 tackles for loss and a 13-yard sack. Jacob Munoz and Harris Good shared the other sack for the unit.

Austin Bertness had a career game to start off the spring season, snagging nine receptions for 124 yards and three touchdowns.

Wyatt Messex led the team in both rushing and passing, accounting for nearly 300 yards of total offense on his own. He competed 22-of-34 pass for 249 yards and three scores, then rushed 14 times for 46 more yards. Messex became just the sixth player in Trinity football history to reach 4,000 career passing yards, and his final touchdown pass gave him 50 in his career - good for fourth all-time.

Tucker Horn was in for a handful of drives at quarterback as well, going 6-for-9 through the air for 96 yards and a touchdown – the first of the game and the season for the Tigers.

Chris Stewart caught four passes for 48 yards, while Ryan Merrifield had three receptions for 44 yards and Anton Noble caught three passes for 25 yards. Stewart's day pushed him past 1,500 career receiving yards, becoming just the 15th player in school history to reach that milestone.

Michael Edmonson piled up 107 all-purpose yards, rushing seven times for 42 yards, catching three passes for 34 yards, and accounting for 31 more yards on a pair of kickoff returns.

Coach Speak

"First off, I just want to say how proud I am of our guys for getting to this point," began Head Coach Jerheme Urban. "In light of all the current events surrounding COVID, the road has been long and winding to be able to play a meaningful college football game. We had a ton of rust to knock off, and it took us a while to find our groove, but our leaders stepped up, weathered the storm, and helped guide our younger players to pull out a hard-fought opening victory against a talented Austin college team."

"I'm really fired up about the physicality of our defensive box," continued Coach Urban. "We know we are young and relatively inexperienced across the board on the backend, and to totally shut down their run game, held them to -3 yards rushing I believe, is absolutely astounding. It allowed us to play a little faster on the backend and know that they were going to be one-dimensional. Offensively we made some good things happen in spurts. As we transition our offense this was a good learning experience for me in terms of calling plays with more of a spread mentality. Not only did I learn a ton about the actual in game operation, but I think our young men did as well. We will be better offensively as we move forward, starting with me as I get used to this newer play calling mentality, and our players adjust to me as well."

"Once again, all in all I am so fired up for our players," Coach Urban said in conclusion. "It is hard to win games in college football, and they came out ready to find a way to make it happen after an almost 15-month hiatus. I'm thankful to Dr. Anderson, Bob King, Marc Powell, Tess Coody, Eric Maloof, Dr. Dee, and everyone else who supported our athletes and have put in place awesome protocols to keep us safe, and for believing in our students and making this a reality. I'm really looking forward to next week as we march on!"

Up Next

Trinity will head to Jackson, Mississippi for continued SAA action against Millsaps (MS) College next weekend. The game is scheduled for a noon kickoff on Saturday, February 13.