CROOKSTON, Minn. – A 48-13 win over the Minnesota Crookston Golden Eagles (1-3, 0-2 NSIC) ended two streaks for the Minnesota State University Moorhead Dragons as they put together two wins in a row and won for the first time on the road in nearly three seasons.

The Dragons, now 2-2 (1-1 NSIC), had everything moving in the right direction to end both of the streaks that began in the final game of September of 2007. MSU Moorhead topped Wayne State (Neb.) and Upper Iowa in consecutive weeks in 2007, with the game against the Wildcats being the last road win (Sept. 22, 2007).

MSUM put up 512 offensive yards in the route of UMC, with junior quarterback, Kevin Koch throwing for 253 yards, completing 18 of 26 attempts, with one interception. The rushing game ran over the Golden Eagles defense as two Dragons ran for over 100 yards, the team totaling 259 yards on the ground. Junior Eboni Lucious-West led the ground attack as he ran the ball 23 times for 130 yards. Sophomore Brett McWilliams ran 16 times for 110 yards.

It took the Dragons 1:55 to score the first points in the game, as Koch completed a 26-yard pass to Tyrone Small who ran the ball across the goal line after the catch. It capped a six-play, 68-yard drive following the opening kick-off that was returned for 14-yards by junior Alex Leach.

The Dragons defense forced Crookston's offense to go three-and-out in their first two drives and was followed by the offense putting up seven more points before the mid-way point of the first quarter.

Starting the drive on the MSUM 37-yard line, Koch threw for a first down to junior Shawn Marlowe to gain 12 yards. The following play saw a lateral pass from Koch to junior Brandon Thompson who ran the ball for 51-yards for the score. The drive took a total of 28-seconds.

The Golden Eagles scored with 2:01 left in the first quarter as they capitalized on a Dragon fumble to score on a 4-play, 15-yard drive. Sophomore running back Keith McBride scored for UMC on a one-yard run.

MSU Moorhead went up by two touchdowns with eight minutes left in the first half as they drove the ball 65-yards down the field in eight plays to score on a one-yard rush by Koch. The key play on the drive was an 18-yard catch by Thompson that was just shy of the goal line.

On the Dragons next drive, they continued to increase their lead as junior Kendall Hendon caught a 49-yard pass from Koch on a third down. It was a three-play, 48-yard drive that took 1:44. True freshman, Wes Kramer tallied his third extra point in the game on the touchdown.

UMC scored on their final possession of the first half, which capped a 78-yard, 14-play drive that left under one minute on the clock.

At half, the Dragons led 27-12. It was the first time since the Wayne State game of 2007 that the Dragons put up 27 or more points in the first half of a game.

The Dragons recovered a fumbled kick-return by the Golden Eagles to start the second half that cut the momentum that the home team had built going into intermission. The momentum did not produce more points as Koch threw an interception that turned into six points for UMC. The team scored on a 75-yard run by McBride.

This did not hinder the Dragon spirit as they took to the ground and rushed for six consecutive plays to move the ball 28-yards before putting the ball in the air on a third and fifteen. Thompson grabbed a pass that put the Dragons in the red zone, and led to a score by McWilliams from six yards out.

MSU Moorhead would score once more in the third quarter and tack on a touchdown by the Dragons second string in the fourth quarter to complete the win 48-18. Koch had another one-yard run to move the score to 41-18 before sophomore Matt Taffe ran in the ball with 3:14 left to play.

The Dragons defense held the Golden Eagles to 217-yards on 60 plays in the game. Senior Joey Dawson led the team with eight tackles in the contest, two of them for a loss of 13-yards. Senior Jake Larsen continues to lead the team on the season as he added seven more tackles to move his season total to 32. Sophomore Kwame Baily and Steve Parks each added five tackles and combined for three tackles for a loss of 20 yards. Travis Davidson picked off the UMC quarterback (Josh Perea) and also added three tackles on defense.
 
The team will return home on Oct. 2 as they will host the No. 1 ranked Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs at 2 p.m. The game is sponsored by the Forum, where every youth wearing a Fargo or Moorhead athletics jersey will receive free admittance to the game.