SEGUIN, Texas – Trinity's football team continued its hot start to the season by defeating Texas Lutheran University 51-14 in its 2021 road opener on Saturday at Bulldogs Stadium. (Photo Credit: Dustin Wyatt / TLU Athletics)

Tucker Horn (Graham, Texas / Graham) had another stellar outing to lead the Tiger offense, completing 30-for-38 through the air for 298 yards passing and five touchdowns. That gives him more than 600 yards passing and 11 touchdowns through the first two weeks of the season.

Winston Hutchison (Round Rock, Texas / McNeil) produced his first career 100-yard game and scored a pair of touchdowns. He rushed for 113 yards and one score, then had five receptions for 31 yards and another touchdown.

The Rundown

The Tigers received the opening kickoff and promptly went 75 yards in just two minutes to take the early 6-0 lead. Austin Bertness (Richmond, Texas / Travis) caught a 40-yard pass from Horn for the opening score, which would be the first of two touchdown connections for the duo.

After a quick drive that covered just 12 yards for TLU, Horn and Trinity's offense was back in business. This time it was 71 yards over nine plays, capped by Hutchison's touchdown reception from eight yards out. The Tigers converted the two-point conversion and led 14-0 with just under six minutes left in the first quarter.

Trinity's defense forced a three-and-out on the next drive to set up the offense once again. The Tigers chewed up the rest of the quarter and a total of 5:38 in the game, ending a 15-play drive with a 15-yard touchdown from Horn to Bertness.

The Bulldogs put together their best drive of the half that was highlighted by a 53-yard pass play, but it ended with the home team missing a 40-yard field goal.  After the teams traded punts on the next two drives, Trinity took over at their own 25 with 6:29 left in the half. Horn capped the drive with his fourth touchdown pass of the half, hitting Anton Noble (Mobile, Ala. / Murphy) from 20 yards out to make it a 28-0 Tiger lead.

Trinity forced another three-and-out before finishing the quarter, then drove down to set up PJ Hensley (St. Louis, Mo. / Ladue Horton Watkins) for a 35-yard field goal and a 31-0 lead at halftime.

Texas Lutheran covered 75 yards on nine plays to start the second half, scoring a touchdown from five yards out to make it a 31-7 game. The halftime break didn't cool off the Tiger offense, though, as Trinity also scored a touchdown on its first drive. Horn found Ryan Merrifield (Austin, Texas / Vandergrift) for a four-yard score – Horn's fifth of the day – to push the lead back to 31 points.

Five plays later, Caleb Harmel (Burton, Texas / Burton) intercepted a TLU pass near midfield to set the offense up once again. Hutchison finished off the short drive with a four-yard scamper into the end zone for a 45-7 Tiger advantage.

Horn gave way to Will Chaney (San Antonio, Texas / Alamo Heights) after that, and Chaney led Trinity to its final touchdown on his first drive under center. Chaney completed 5-for-6 through the air on the drive, which was capped by a five-yard touchdown run by Gerald Daniels (Houston, Texas / North Shore).

After a Trinity fumble on the ensuing punt, Texas Lutheran capitalized from just 28 yards out for the home team's second touchdown of the game and a 51-14 final score. The Tigers were able to run off the final 2:08 to seal the win.

Numbers to Note

Trinity improves to 18-13 all-time against Texas Lutheran, including wins in the past two meetings. The teams last met in 2016 and each side had a win that season.

The 37-point margin is the largest in the series since Trinity won a 42-0 game against the Bulldogs in 1972. It also marks the first time either team has scored 50 or more in the series. Speaking of 50, today's score is the first time since 2002 that Trinity has scored 50 or more in back-to-back games.

Bertness led Trinity with 65 yards on three receptions – two of which were for touchdowns. It is his second career multi-touchdown game.

Merrifield and Caleb Crawford (Houston, Texas / Strake Jesuit) led all receivers with six catches each. Merrifield finished with 56 yards receiving and a touchdown.

Noble scored his second career touchdown in the game, piling up 55 yards on three receptions.

Jeremy Irving (Dallas, Texas / Bishop Lynch) led the defense with seven tackles in today's game, and he was one of 10 players to finish with three or more stops in a true team effort.

Jacob Munoz (Cedar Park, Texas / Cedar Park) had the only sack of the game for the Tigers, while Cooper Adams (Plano, Texas / West) finished with a team-leading 2.0 tackles for loss. Michael Jewett (Houston, Texas / Strake Jesuit) also had 1.5 tackles for loss for the Tigers.

Coach Speak

"First off I want to tip my hat to Marc Powell and our training staff," began Head Coach Jerheme Urban. "This was our first afternoon game of the year, the heat index was up over 100 degrees, and they did a tremendous job keeping our guys hydrated and as cool as possible on the sideline. With that being said, I think the team answered the challenge of playing fast and physical from the opening kickoff, and you could see that in our play distribution in the first half. Not very often will we run 55 plays on offense and only 20 on defense in a half, but that was how it shook out today and was reflective of each side's execution. As we move into this bye week we are going to really need to refine some things as we prepare to open conference at defending conference champion Berry College on their homecoming. We will continue to lean on our young development on offense and defense, as they have been the catalyst in our preparation each of these last two weeks...without those guys being fully committed to competing and developing, we'd be hard pressed to have started the season as fast as we have."

Up Next

Following a bye week, the Tigers will open up Southern Athletic Association play on the road against defending champion Berry College, in Mount Berry, Georgia. The game is scheduled for a 6:00 p.m. (EDT) kickoff on Saturday, October 2.