Michigan Tech quarterback Elliott Larner attempts a pass during a game against Roosevelt Saturday at Kearly Stadium in Houghton. (David Archambeau/For the Gazette)

HOUGHTON — For 30 minutes Saturday, the Michigan Tech Huskies football team looked like a group still basking in a rivalry win from a week earlier. They trailed the Roosevelt Lakers, 24-21. But, 30 minutes later, Huskies played a phenomenal second half and came away with their seventh win of the season, 56-31, over the Lakers at Kearly Stadium.

“Obviously, slow starting,” said Huskies coach Dan Mettlach. “Thought we were pretty sloppy in the first half. Did some good things at times, obviously, to put 21 points on the board in the first half. But, you have the emotional week last week, big win on the road. Thought we did everything we could to protect against a letdown today, and just took us a little bit longer to get out of bed than I’d like to.

“Made some adjustments, and had some good conversations at halftime with the guys. I thought they handled it well. By the time we got back up the hill, they were ready to go, and, obviously, played much better in the second half.”

The Huskies (7-2 overall, 4-1 GLIAC) scored on five of seven second-half possessions, all touchdowns, which went a long way towards their overcoming the tough start.

“To be honest, we didn’t say a ton,” Mettlach said. “Each coach talked to their position group, and made sure they understood what we were trying to do in the second half with what we were going to do offensively or defensively. But, it wasn’t a whole lot of yelling or anything like that.

“The guys know, one, we haven’t played well at home. We weren’t playing well at home again for the first half, so we needed to correct that, and two, you let something like this slip away, whether you’re still patting yourself on the back for last weekend, or looking forward to next week, and whatever it is, everything’s out the window at that point. So, I thought they did a nice job calming each other down in the locker room. The leadership kind of took over, and they did all the talking, and, obviously, played much better after halftime.”

One of the biggest reasons for the turnaround in the second half, two key forced fumbles by the Huskies’ defense, which made up for a pair of dropped interception attempts in the first half.

The first fumble came on a drive by the Lakers (1-7 overall, 0-5 GLIAC) that started on their own 17 with 11:53 left in the third quarter. Four plays later, a fumble after a catch put the Huskies over midfield at Roosevelt’s own 41-yard-line. Seven plays later, freshman quarterback Elliott Larner pushed up the middle on his own for the touchdown from 18 yards out. After sophomore kicker Avery Kucharski’s extra point was good, the Huskies led at that point, 28-24.

The second fumble was forced on the very next Lakers’ possession. Five plays in, Roosevelt had a first down on a run by Tony Chahino, but he had the ball knocked out of his hands and the Huskies recovered with 6:32 left in the quarter.

Six plays later, Larner hit senior wide receiver Ethan Champney from 23 yards out for the score. After Kucharski’s kick, Michigan Tech led 35-24.

“We got the ball on the ground,” said Mettlach. “In the first half, we were in great spots on two occasions that I can remember, where we had picks right in our hands and we dropped them. Who knows where those balls would have ended up had we just been able to catch them.

“We get the two turnovers in the second half, offense is able to capitalize on them, and then it’s a completely different game at that point.”

Junior running back Jake Rueff scampered in from 11 yards out on a reverse to put the Huskies ahead 42-24 just seconds into the fourth quarter before Roosevelt finally found the end zone again from a yard out.

However, the Huskies marched back down the field again, this time from 75 yards away, and redshirt sophomore Nic Nora crossed the goal line on another reverse, this time from 21 yards away, which gave the Huskies back their 18-point advantage at 49-31.

Nora finished his day with six rushes for 63 yards, and three touchdowns. He also made three catches for 53 yards.

Champney had seven catches for 110 yards and a touchdown, and he threw for a 25-yard touchdown to redshirt sophomore Bryce Kurncz.

“I thought all three of them, ‘Kurnczy,’ Ethan Champney, not getting a lot of touches to execute the double pass, and, obviously, getting Nic involved in the run game was good for us as well,” Mettlach said. “Anytime you can get those guys touches, when you’re not putting it in the air, however we’re doing it, obviously, keeps them into it.

“That was obviously a big part of today’s deal. We knew that they were going to try to bring pressure in the box and kind of muddy up our run game from that standpoint. So, if we could get them going sideways and some misdirection stuff, (we) thought we had a chance to get some big plays. Obviously, every time we ran one of those, it was for good yardage.”

Freshman running back Cameron Cornett scored the Huskies’ final touchdown with 2:51 remaining when he ran in from 16 yards out.

Nora scored each of the Huskies’ first two touchdowns, the first from 8 yards out with 8:32 left in the first quarter, the second from six with 9:53 left in the second quarter, and the Huskies led 14-7 at that point.

The Lakers scored 10 straight points on a touchdown and a field goal before Kurncz was the receiver of a pass from Champney for a touchdown from 25 yards out with 1:46 left in the first half. However, the Lakers bounced right back with a touchdown of their own 43 seconds later to take the three-point lead into the break.

Larner, making his first career start, was 14-of-23 through the air for 195 yards and a touchdown. On the ground, he rushed 13 times for 95 yards.

“Starting a true freshman ‘Q’ (quarterback) for his first start, I think everybody picked up the slack a little bit,” said Mettlach. “There’s some throws that Elliott wishes he had back. We tried to move the pocket to give him some clean ground to do that, and (he) just missed a couple, but, obviously, made a couple other really good reads and throws there on the big chunk plays.”

Up next

The Huskies head back out on the road for the final time in 2025 Saturday when they travel to face Grand Valley State for the Lakers’ Homecoming game at Lubbers Stadium.