Box Score
COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. – Entering his team's game against Hamline Saturday, Saint John's junior cornerback
Westin Hoyt (Forest Lake, Minn.) had six interceptions in his collegiate career.
That included four with returns of 24 yards or more, and two that were returned inside the opponents' 10-yard-line.
But he still hadn't brought one back all the way.
That changed against the Pipers, however. Hoyt picked off a pass in the first quarter and returned it 45 yards for a touchdown, one of three interceptions the Johnnies recorded in the first half en route to a 77-0 victory before a crowd of 7,766 at an overcast Clemens Stadium.
"I've had a couple where I've been close," said Hoyt, who returned interceptions to the Hamline 9-yard line and the Wisconsin-River Falls 2 in games last season.
"But today I was finally able to punch one into the end zone. I told myself I couldn't get stopped again inside the 10. I was going to make every effort possible to get the ball across."
Hoyt's interception return came immediately following a 6-yard touchdown catch by senior tight end
Charlie Plum (Inver Grove Heights, Minn./Cretin-Derham Hall) that put SJU (2-0, 1-0 MIAC) on top 7-0 early in the first quarter. And from there, the Johnnies found the end zone four more times en route to building a 42-0 halftime lead.
The last of those scores - a 10-yard touchdown catch by senior wideout
Sam Nolan (Lakeville, Minn./North) with 29 seconds remaining in the second quarter - was set up thanks to an interception by junior linebacker
Peyton Goettlicher (Mankato, Minn./West) at the Johnnies' 38.
But perhaps the most memorable pick of the day came late in the first quarter when Pipers wide receiver Aiden Herz took the handoff on an end around, then fired off a pass that bounced in-and-out of the hands of wide-open Ty Burgoon and into the waiting hands of Johnnies junior safety
Mark Rogalski (Eden Prairie, Minn./St. Thomas Academy).
"That was pretty crazy," a smiling Rogalski said. "We were expecting them to run some sort of trick play the whole half. The coaches kept telling us to stay home and make the play when it came to us. The ball was under-thrown a little bit. But he bobbled it and it came right to me."
In all, the Johnnies held Hamline to just 68 yards of total offense while piling up 672 themselves - the most since a 749-yard total while defeating St. Olaf 54-17 on Oct. 26, 2019, in Northfield. The 77 points were the most SJU has put up in a single game since topping St. Scholastica 81-0 on Oct. 30, 2021, at Clemens Stadium.
Nine different offensive players scored touchdowns - led by senior wide receiver
Riley Schwellenbach (Woodbury, Minn./East Ridge), who had scoring grabs of 5 and 10 yards in the second quarter. Senior wide receivers Nolan,
Thomas Jacobs (Lakeland, Minn./Stillwater Area) and
Andrew Schaffer (Chaska, Minn.), sophomore running back
Sedric Melvin Jr. (Homestead, Fla./South Dade), sophomore tight end
Tanner Davis (Minnetrista, Minn./Holy Family Catholic) and sophomore wide receiver
Griffin Murray (Jordan, Minn./Holy Family Catholic) all notched their first collegiate touchdowns.
Senior running back
Dylan Kirchner (Andover, Minn.) recorded his second on a 49-yard run in the third quarter.
"(Head coach) Gary (Fasching) has been stressing that we have to get better and better each week," said senior quarterback
Trey Feeney (Moorhead, Minn.), who threw for 302 yards and six touchdowns. "I thought we did that this week. But that needs to continue to happen if we want to be a team that contends for a national championship."
SJU - ranked No. 5 in this week's national polls - made life difficult on Hamline quarterback Daylen Cummings, who spent his first two seasons at SJU - playing at defensive back last fall.
He threw for just 44 yards - the longest going for just nine. He was only sacked once, but he was under pressure a lot of the time. The Pipers (1-1, 0-1 MIAC) never advanced deeper than their own 47 and gained a total of just 12 yards on five offensive possessions (all three-and-outs) in the second half.
"The biggest improvement usually happens from week one to week two," said Fasching, whose team defeated then-No. 10 Wisconsin-La Crosse 24-21 in its season opener on Sept. 5. "That's the first time you get something on tape and you're able to address some of the problems that you haven't seen in practice.
"I thought we made a big jump today. Hamline probably isn't to the level of La Crosse (ranked No. 21 nationally this past week). But I thought our guys really played well. Having two weeks to prepare really helped too. We were able to iron out a lot of things."
Now the Johnnies look ahead to their first road game of the year - a matchup with Augsburg (1-1, 1-0 MIAC) at noon Saturday at Edor Nelson Field in Minneapolis.
The Auggies blanked St. Scholastica 30-0 Saturday at home.
"We just have to keep getting better from week-to-week," Hoyt said. "That's kind of our motto. It's not so much about who we're playing. We gauge ourselves compared to our performance the week before. And I think we got better today. It started from the ones and continued all the way down to the other guys who got a chance to play too."
Feeney Numbers
Today's performance was Feeney's sixth 300-yard passing game of his career, which broke his tie with Willie Seiler (1990-93) and Ryan Keating (2000-03) for sole possession of fifth-most in program history. Kurt Ramler (1993-96) is fourth with eight. The six-touchdown game was the third of Feeney's career and the performance enabled him to pass Nick Martin (2012-15) for eighth on SJU's all-time list with 49.
MIAC-Opening Success
The Johnnies are now 72-25-7 (.726) all-time in their first MIAC game of the season, including a 16-6-3 record against Hamline (9-2-2 in Collegeville and 7-4-1 in St. Paul). It took SJU until its 11th season in the MIAC to win its first conference game of the season, a 7-0 home shutout of Hamline on Oct. 3, 1931. SJU was 0-6-4 in its first 10 conference openers and is 72-19-3 (.782) since.
Shutout
Saturday's shutout was the 197th in program history and the 28th in 144 games (19.4 percent) during Fasching's tenure as head coach.
And Another Shutout vs. Hamline
The 77-0 victory is the Johnnies' fourth-consecutive shutout of Hamline. SJU has out-scored the Pipers 371-12 in its last six meetings. A total of 24 of the teams' 90 meetings have been shutouts in favor of SJU.
