Kelsey Ackerman | Contributing Writer

The Beaver football team took the field at Leslie J. Rollins Stadium for the first time this year on Saturday, Sept. 6th. Their opponents, the eighth-ranked UW-Platteville Pioneers came ready to play as they handed the Beavers a tough 63-3 loss.

The Pioneers put up 531 yards of total offense compared to the Beaver’s 277 yards. 118 of those yards came from the 19 carries by senior Dylan Barrett. Junior Ben Seitz caught a team-leading four passes, including one that went for 40 yards.

“We really need to focus on taking care of our assignments on every play and being more consistent,” Seitz said.

A big factor of the game was the six offensive Beaver turnovers and a punt-block by the Pioneers.

“I don’t care who we are playing, that will get us beat 100% of the time. You definitely can’t give a team of Platteville’s caliber six turnovers and expect it to be close. I think we can play more physical and we have to take away the big plays in the pass game,” Head Coach Jay Anderson said.

The only points for the Beavers came from sophomore kicker Tyler Stolen. Stolen kicked a 25-yard field goal in the first half and a quiet offense followed the remainder of the game.

“I knew the offense was struggling so instead of putting points on the board, my role [as the punter] was to give Platteville the worst field position possible,” Stolen said.

For the Beavers, senior John Beck lead the team with a personal best of ten tackles, with junior Connor Downs following with eight.

Overall the opening weekend exposed aspects of the game the Beavers can work on leading into the rest of their season.

The Beavers will hit the road to face the Cobbers of Concordia Moorhead on Saturday, Sept. 13th with kick-off scheduled at 1:00 p.m.

Photo by Taylor Staab