Football: Mount Union Advances to NCAA Elite 8

ALLIANCE: The University of Mount Union continued on its way to a possible 14th National Championship with a hard-earned 24-19 victory over Carnegie Mellon in a Division III Third Round playoff game at Kehres Stadium on Saturday.

The victory sends the fifth-ranked Raiders (12-0) to a quarterfinal game next week against Salisbury (11-0) at a site to be determined. Eighth-ranked Salisbury defeated Randolph Macon, 35-17, in another third-round game.

Mount's victory was not assured until linebacker Rossy Moore (Lima, O./Central Catholic) sacked CMU's quarterback Ben Mills on a fourth-down play at the Mount 46-yard line with 1:25 left.

Senior Tyler Echeverry (Naples, Fla./Barron Collier) rushed for 112 yards and two touchdowns and quarterback TJ DeShields (Beloit/West Branch) completed 23 of 30 passes for 218 yards as the Raiders raised the program's all-time playoff record to 114-21.

The teams traded two first half touchdowns with the lone difference between a 14-14 tie was a missed extra-point attempt by the Tartans.

Carnegie Mellon, ranked 13th, gave the Raiders all they could handle as Mills completed 17 of 29 passes for 187 yards and two touchdowns. Sophomore Brendan McCullough caught nine of those passes for 98 yards and one score.

Mount turned the game in the third quarter when it scored 10 points in a span of 3:50. Sophomore Ivan Maric (Falls Church, Va./McClean) kicked a 41-yard field goal and Echeverry added a two-yard run that gave Mount a 24-13 lead following Maric's PAT.

The Raiders got touchdowns from Deshields on a three-yard run to open the scoring and a 13-yard run by All-American Echeverry with 4:42 left in the first half following a 48-yard kickoff return by senior Darnell Williams (Cleveland/John Adams).

Carnegie Mellon, which converted six of 10 third-down conversions and two of two fourth-down attempts in the first half, took a 13-7 lead in the second quarter when junior Joey McGinnis (High Point, NC/Stem Early College) scored on an 18-yard run on a fourth-and-one play.

Mills (The Woodlands, Tex./Woodlands) got the Tartans on the scoreboard with a 12-yard scoring pass to McCullough (Venetia, Pa./Peters Township) with 3:12 left in the first quarter.

Each team ran 67 offensive plays with Mount rolling up 361 yards to CM's 325.