Box Score New Ulm, MN - The Martin Luther College Knights hosted Macalester on Saturday afternoon for its 2023 home opener. The game began with fireworks from both teams, as the two teams scored on their opening plays on offense, with the Knights benefiting from a 71 yard touchdown pass from Quarterback Max Nordlie to Wide Receiver Mason Cox.

On the ensuing drive for Macalester, Quarterback Michael Nadeau fired an 88 yard touchdown pass to his receiver Nick Bice. The Scots would find similar success from Nadeau from the air and rode his arm to the 56-27 win over the Knights.

The rest of the first half saw a lot of back and forth action starting with another Nordlie to Cox connection once for a deep touchdown pass near the left sideline, as Cox displayed his speed and gained enough separation to find the end zone. The Scots would respond with another quick score to make it 14-13 with just over five minutes of game time.

The Knights were then able to establish the run game and fed running backs Carson Oestreich and Rees Roecker the ball up the middle. As a result, MLC punched it into the end zone and regained the lead (21-14) following Roecker's seven-yard rushing touchdown and Oestreich's successful two-point conversion.

At the beginning of the second quarter, Nadeau gave Macalester the lead right back with two more touchdown passes, making it 28-21 in favor of the Scots. Nadeau was threatening again near the MLC goal line, but linebacker Joseph Ehlke came up with a timely interception in the end zone for a touchback, giving the Knights a shot of adrenaline.

The MLC offense was unable to get a drive going following the Ehlke interception and were forced to punt it right back to Macalester. However, Defensive Back Jeremiah Stanton picked Nadeau off for his second interception, allowing the offense to take another crack at scoring before halftime. The Knights' offense would then go three and out and this time around Nadeau capitalized on good field position and threw his fifth touchdown pass of the first half. The Scots would enter the break up 35-21.

Neither team scored in the first six minutes of play to start the second half until Nadeau found an open receiver in Nathan Wu, who then stiff armed his way down the sideline near the 50 yard line, leading to an 84 yard touchdown play following Wu's yards after catch. Although the play occurred in the middle of the third quarter, the touchdown seemed to put the Knights away, vanishing any comeback attempts from them.

Despite the loss, MLC showed vast improvement from the previous week's loss to Concordia-Wisconsin. The rushing attack got going for 151 yards against Macalester, heavily surpassing the net rushing yards of -2 against the Falcons. 

The passing game also showed flashes of big play potential with Cox as the target. The senior had a career-high in receiving yards (186) and touchdown receptions (3), while recording four receptions on the day.

The linebackers for MLC once again stepped up to make plays in the running game and were led in tackles by Thomas Balge (9) and Ehlke (8).

Nadeau finished his day going 29-42 for 542 yards passing. In addition, the quarterback tossed a school record with eight touchdown passes.

The Knights record goes to 0-2 with the loss and will return to action next Saturday, September 16, on the road at Augsburg in Minneapolis. Kickoff is slated to begin at 1 p.m.