Box Score

KEARNEY, Neb. – No. 9 Nebraska-Kearney (9-1 overall, 8-0 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) jumped out to a 20-0 first quarter lead en route to a 48-21 win over Fort Lewis (2-7, 2-6) today at Cope Stadium.

Jake Spitzlberger completed 12 of 14 passes for 245 yards and three touchdowns and Brendan Liess had five rushes for 107 yards and two touchdowns for the Lopers.

Justin Peters, starting at quarterback in place of the injured Tim Jenkins, completed 22 of 36 passes for 203 yards and two touchdowns for the Skyhawks. Justin Johnson caught 13 passes for 137 yards.

Leiss opened the scoring with a 7-yard touchdown run 4:26 into the first quarter. Two Spitzlberger touchdown passes – 12 yards to Shane Carraher and 21 yards to Kyle Kaiser – pushed the lead to 20-0 at the end of the first quarter.

One play after FLC's Rich Rodriguez missed a 34-yard field goal, Liess raced 80 yards for a touchdown to extend the lead to 27-0 less than three minutes into the second stanza. The ensuing kickoff was a high, short one that UNK recovered at FLC's 30. Spitzlberger capped a five-play drive with a one-yard quarterback sneak to make the score 34-0. After FLC went three-and-out, Spitzlberger found Kaiser for a 40-yard touchdown pass to push the score to 41-0.

The Skyhawks got on the board with a one-yard plunge by A.J. Miko with 1:44 left in the first half. 

UNK scored the only points of the third period on a two-yard TD run by backup quarterback Kevin Romero.

Fort Lewis managed a pair of scoring drives in the fourth quarter to close the gap to 48-21. Peters engineered a 12-play, 62-yard drive that was capped with a 15-yard pass to Jonas Matos 53 seconds into the final period. He later marched FLC 63 yards on 10 plays in a drive that ended with a two-yard strike to Miko with 3:21 left in the game.

Fort Lewis concludes its season when it hosts New Mexico Highlands (1-8 overall, 1-6 RMAC) at 1 p.m. next Saturday at Ray Dennison Memorial Field.