STORM LAKE, Iowa (Sept. 17) - The Buena Vista football team opened American Rivers Conference play on Saturday night hosting Coe College, and the two teams battled it out for four quarters, but it was the Kohawks hanging on for a 14-3 victory.

After a scoreless first quarter, BVU put up the game's first points when Ramon Garcia converted a 25-yard field goal with 4:52 left in the first half. That's how things stood until the final play of the half when Coe quarterback Nick Casey threw a pass with just seconds left from the BVU 32-yard line that was tipped by a BVU defender in the endzone but then caught for a touchdown. The extra-point put the Kohawks in front, 7-3, at the half.

The two defensives went back-and-forth in the third before a two-yard touchdown run with under 45 seconds left in the quarter gave Coe a 14-3 advantage.

BVU got down deep into Kohawk territory twice in the second half but turned the ball over on downs both times.  The two teams combined to go 5-of-13 on fourth downs and 12-of-39 on third down.

"Defensively, we played outstanding outside of a few plays," says BVU head coach Grant Mollring. "I was really proud of their effort tonight. It was a physical game and we felt like we went toe to toe with them for four quarters."

Sophomore quarterback Zach Herrera attempted a career-high 53 passes and completed 24 for a 210 yards. The 53 atttempts are tied for third-most in a single-game in program history. Isaia Morones caught five passes for 75 yards while Dolan Pospichal hauled in six for 71. Eman Alaniz carried the ball 16 times for 64 yards.

"Offensively we needed to execute better on early downs to get us ahead of schedule," adds Mollring. "We showed flashes of some really good things but didn't finish drives with points and that ultimately cost us the game."

The Kohawks (2-1, 1-0 A-R-C) finished with 150 yards on the ground and 190 through the air.

Defensively, Jeremy Woodward turned in a team-high nine tackles for the Beavers with RJ Rojas leading a trio of players with seven. Trey Ortman intercepted his second pass of the year and returned it eight yards.

Buena Vista is now 1-2 overall (0-1 A-R-C) and will look to move back to .500 next Saturday when it travels to Luther College for a 1:00 p.m. kickoff. The Norse were dealt a 62-0 loss on Saturday to Wartburg.