Official Stats
Barbourville, KY-The Belhaven football team lost at Union College (KY) on Saturday afternoon by a final score of 34-15 and fall to 3-5 overall and 0-4 in the Mid-South Conference West Division. Union (5-3, 2-1 MSC) scored the first 20 points of the game in the first quarter before Belhaven slowed the Bulldogs down and made a push to get back in the game. Belhaven had three more costly turnovers that either led to points for Union or took potential points off the board for the Blazers.

Union held Belhaven to three downs and out on their first drive and when the Bulldogs got the football marched 59 yards on four plays for the first score of the game with 12:52 remaining in the first quarter. Quarterback Mike Brinkley found Sean Mackey on a 13 yard touchdown pass that made it a 6-0 game. The Bulldogs found the end zone again just over three minutes later when Armond Smith took it in from the one and suddenly the Bulldogs held a 13-0 edge. The game looked like it would get out of hand when Union recovered a muffed punt and on the next play Brinkley connected with P.J. Burrowes for a 58 yard score extending the lead to 20-0

The Blazers stopped the bleeding a bit and made it a 20-7 game in the second quarter on a 21 yard touchdown pass from Alex Williams to Cordario Calvin. Belhaven trimmed the score to 20-9 on a safety when punter Jacob Chancellor pinned the Bulldogs inside their own one yard line on a 73 yard punt followed by Brinkley being called for intentional grounding in the end zone.

However, Union pushed the lead out to 27-9 on a touchdown run of 20 yards by Armond Smith after the Bulldogs blocked a James Bryan field goal attempt that would have pulled the Blazers to within one possession at 20-12. The Blazers fought back to make it 27-15 with 13:25 to play in the game on a five yard touchdown catch by Kevin Dizer only to see the Bulldogs rally for a another scoring run of five yards by Smith that made it 34-15 and essentially put the game away with 6:08 left on the clock.

Williams was 17 of 39 through the air for 161 yards and two touchdowns and had an interception for Belhaven. Dizer made six catches for 81 yards and had TD while Calvin came up with three catches for 46 yards and a score before leaving the game due to an injury. On the ground Michael Pettus rushed for 63 yards on 11 carries to pace the Blazers. Pettus was also active on special teams returning four kicks for 92 yards.

As a team, the Belhaven offense racked up 307 yards of total offense with 110 of them coming on the ground. The Blazers struggled on third down converting just 5 of 19 opportunities. Belhaven also had 10 costly penalties for 81 yards

Defensively, Belhaven was led by Trevor Butts with 11 tackles followed by Ricky Wadlington with 10 tackles. Johnathan Gamberi had eight tackles and Craig McDonald came up with seven for the Blazers. Belhaven forced one turnover and that was an interception by Stephen Miner in the second half. Chad Smith and Michael Sellers each registered sacks in the game

Union had a pair of rushers go over a 100 yards in the game as Smith and Rob Brown had 109 and 105 yards respectively with Smith scoring three touchdowns. Mike Brinkley completed 15 passes for 216 yards and two touchdowns. P.J. Burrowes had four catches for 86 yards and a score followed by Mackey with three receptions for 55 yards and a TD. Union had 475 yards of total offense as a team with 241 coming on the ground.

Zach Eagler led the Bulldogs on defense with 10 tackles. The Bulldogs were also very effective getting pressure on the quarterback as they sacked the Blazer quarterbacks four times and had four quarterback hurries.

Belhaven will be back in action at home next week when they take on the University of the Cumberlands starting at 1:30 PM. All the play-by-play action can be heard via Stretch Internet through the Belhaven athletics website starting with the pregame show at 1:15 PM.