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Mount Union out for revenge at Stagg Bowl

Max Righetti #83 6-0, 180 sophomore kicker Member of Mount Union’s 58-man playoff roster ... Handles kickoff duties for the Purple Raiders ... Averaging 60.6 yards on 35 kickoffs with seven touchbacks this season ... Has kicked off 19 times in four playoff games, including off all eight times in a 43-40 semifinal win at Wisconsin-Oshkosh ... 2016 graduate of Salem High School.

SALEM, Va. — The Mount Union football team wasn’t going to miss the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl after falling short last season.

“We understand just how hard it is to get to this point in the season,” Mount Union coach Vince Kehres aid. “It’s very, very difficult. You certainly cannot take it for granted one minute.”

A young Purple Raider squad dropped a 14-12 decision to Mary Hardin-Baylor in the NCAA Division III semifinals last year and the two teams will meet again tonight, this time in the national championship game.

“Our approach is to try to grind out good days throughout the year to put us in a position to win the championship in late December,” Kehres said.

Top-ranked Mary Hardin-Baylor and second-ranked Mount Union are both 14-0 on the season. The Crusaders are riding a 29-game winning streak as they seek a second straight national title.

“We’re very excited about the opportunity to come back to Salem, Virginia, and have an opportunity to play a wonderful football team and a great program with Mount Union,” Mary Hardin-Baylor coach Pete Fredenburg said.

The Crusaders are in back-to-back Stagg Bowls and the third overall.

“It obviously gives you a hand up, because you know what to expect and all your coaches and all your players understand that,” Fredenburg said. “Sure, we know the things that have to happen.”

It will be a matchup of the the nation’s top offense against the best defense in the nation.

Mount Union is averaging 53.3 points a game, while Mary Hardin-Baylor is allowing just 7.0 points per game. No one has scored more than 21 points against the Crusaders all season. They have given up just 16 total points in four playoff games.

“They do a great job with those men, and I mean obviously as a defensive guy, I can appreciate good defense and they play great defense,” Kehres said. “There’s certainly not a lot of obvious weaknesses on the defense, but we are a confident and we’ve got to try to find some ways that we can move the chains and try to push some points on the board.”

Mount Union can put up the points. Quarterback D’Angelo Fulford leads all of college football with 49 touchdown passes and only three interceptions. The Purple Raiders also feature 1,000-yard rushers Jawanza Evans-Morris and Josh Petruccelli and 1,000-yard receiver Justin Hill.

“It’s very difficult because they are talented and they have so many different tools, but we just try to to the best we can,” Fredenburg said. “The critical thing is just line up correctly and let our guys have a chance to train them to see the things that we think Mount Union will attack us with.”

Mary Hardin-Baylor also has a lot of talent with four players named to the Associated Press Division III All-America team Thursday.

Senior defensive tackle Haston Adams and senior cornerback Kris Brown along with senior kick returner/receiver Bryce Wilkerson and senior offensive tackle Corbin Campitelli were honored.

Wilkerson had a school-record 65 catches for 697 yards and five touchdowns. He has two kickoff returns and three punt returns for scores on the season and also has a rushing touchdown.

“You learn more from losses than you do wins,” Kehres said. “And I think we’ve learned a great deal from (that loss to Mary Hardin-Baylor last season) and the other loss that we had in 2016 against John Carroll.”

That experience helped the Purple Raiders rally from 25 points down in the second half to win at third-ranked Wisconsin-Oshkosh, 43-40, in the semifinals Saturday.

“I think the challenge for any team this time of year is to try to string together two outstanding performances against the best two teams that you are going to play all year, and do it in six days” Kehres said. “I think as big as that was … they key for us is to put it behind us an immediately be able to move forward.”

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