Wesley rallies in fourth quarter to beat Hawks in battle of ranked teams

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Huntingdon football team gave Wesley College a battle on Saturday. But for the second straight season, the Wolverines rallied in the fourth quarter to win by 10 points.

The 22nd-ranked Hawks led by 11 points entering the fourth quarter. But Wesley, ranked 12th by the American Football Coaches Association and 10th by D3football.com, scored three touchdowns in the final 15 minutes to win 38-28.

"We played hard and we played well for the most part," Huntingdon head coach Mike Turk said. "But we turned the ball over in some critical situations. We had two turnovers in the red zone that cost us potential points and we didn't control the ball as efficiently as we wanted to on offense. As a result, we kept our defense on the field for too many snaps and it wore us down in the fourth quarter.

"When you're playing a really good team like Wesley, every mistake is magnified. We're disappointed right now, but I'm proud of the way we battled and the effort we gave for four quarters."

Offensively, Saturday was one of the Hawks' best performances in their six meetings with Wesley. The 28 points matched the most Huntingdon (3-1) has ever scored against the Wolverines and 472 yards of offense is the second most in the series for the Hawks.

Wesley (4-1) finished with 515 yards of offense, 304 of which came in the final 21 minutes of the game.

Receiver Taylor Belsterling, who finished with five receptions for 172 yards and a touchdown, played a key role in two of the Hawks' touchdowns. In the second quarter, trailing 3-0, Belsterling hauled in a Ryne Taylor pass and went 65 yards for the score. In the third quarter, leading 14-10, Belsterling took a Taylor pass 61 yards to the Wesley 3-yard line. Austin Bennett scored three plays later on a 1-yard run.

"Belsterling made some really nice plays for us today," Turk said. "On his touchdown, we were trying to find our best matchup and he made a good play and took it 65 yards. We need him to keep coming through with big plays as the season goes on."

In between those two touchdowns, Huntingdon linebacker John-David Swiger recovered a fumble at the Wesley 34-yard line to set up a nine-play drive that was capped with a 1-yard scoring run by quarterback Taylor Hughes.

A Jeremy Murphy interception set up the Hawks' final scoring drive. Hughes connected with Zach Camp on a 6-yard touchdown strike to give Huntingdon a 28-17 lead with 1:07 left in the third quarter.

In addition to Belsterling, Tyler Robinson finished with seven catches for 118 yards. Huntingdon's quarterbacks combined for 361 yards and two touchdowns. Ryne Taylor was 15-of-29 for 217 yards, a touchdown and an interception and Taylor Hughes was 10-of-16 for 144 yards, a touchdown and an interception.

Bennett led the ground game with 75 yards on 20 carries. David Ballard kicked all four extra points.

Defensively, Swiger recorded double-digit tackles for a third straight game and finished with 12 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss and a fumble recovery. Anthony White added eight tackles.

Huntingdon returns to action next week at Greensboro College in a USA South Athletic Conference matchup. It will be the Hawks' second conference game of the year and marks the start of a six-game conference stretch.

"We're disappointed right now because we wanted to come up here and win," Turk said. "But the difference between past seasons and this season is we're part of a conference now. This game doesn't make or break our season. We have six conference games ahead of us and that is what we're focused on. We go to Greensboro next week and that's what we're concentrating on now."