ROCK ISLAND, Ill. -- It will be an all-Viking showdown on Saturday, October 2nd as the Augustana football team welcomes in North Park to Lindberg Stadium as part of Homecoming Weekend on campus.
Augie enters Saturday's matchup winners of three straight over North Park, with their most recent coming in the 2020 abbreviated season back in April where they won in Chicago by a score of 51-14. The game was the third of just three contests played in the spring due to COVID-19 as Augustana ended their short season in dominating fashion. Throughout their current three-game winning streak over North Park, Augustana has outscored their Viking counterpart by a margin of 136-21 and has won five of the last seven in the series, averaging over 35 points per game during that span. Both of their losses to North Park since 2013 have come in Rock Island.
Augustana is looking to bounce back from a loss to No. 1 ranked North Central last Saturday when they were defeated 58-6 on the road. The Vikings battled tough through the first 15 minutes of the game, trailing by just one score after one quarter of action. The Cardinals used a big second period to stretch their lead out to multiple scores and pull away for good. For the Vikings, quarterback
Thomas Hall finished the game with 107 yards through the air, completing passes to eight different Vikings players.
Bobby Inserra led the offense with four catches for 46 yards, both team highs.
Jacob Brooks and
Tyler Rivelli shared the workload in the backfield as the two combined for 68 yards on the ground on 20 attempts.
On defense,
Jordan Geroulis had a game-high nine tackles.
Tim Swaney was close behind with eight, while
Chase Tatum and
Nick Harper each tallied seven. Tatum had one for loss as well.
North Park enters Saturday's matchup with Augustana with an 0-3 record overall and 0-2 in CCIW play. The team has been outscored 168-41 through three games this year, but is coming off their best offensive performance of the young season so far as they put up 27 points against No. 5 ranked Wheaton. After one quarter, North Park trailed by just one point, but the Thunder answered with 44 unanswered in the second and third quarters to cushion their lead. The Thunder out-gained the Vikings on offense 567 yards to 287. North Park's quarterback combo of Matt Little and Matt Eck combined for 179 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions on a fairly even workload.
Head coach Stephen Bell says his team and coaching staff are eager to be back at home and looking forward to their next challenge.
"We get to go back at it again and prove to ourselves we are better than what we showed last Saturday," Bell said. "There is no rewind button in athletics, what's in the past is in the past. Our focus is on North Park."
Kickoff is slated for 1:00 p.m.
Game Coverage vs. North Park
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