With their team trailing in the first half Saturday, a Grand Valley State University fan was overheard saying, “It’s a long game.”

The phrase was meant to inspire hope for a GVSU comeback. Unfortunately for the Lakers, it literally was a long game.

An inability to establish an offense, porous rush defense and turnovers doomed GVSU in a 38-6 loss to Augustana College in the second round of the NCAA playoffs. The Lakers turned the ball over six times, committed nine penalties, and were outrushed by 135 yards.

“The story of the game, like pretty much every college football game, were turnovers, rushing offense, rushing defense,” said GVSU head coach Matt Mitchell. “We turned the ball over way to much. We couldn’t effectively run the ball when we sometimes needed to, and we gave them too much rushing.”

The Lakers were simply outplayed by their South Dakota counterparts, much to the chagrin of the team, the fans who made the more than 10 hour road trip, and the fans watching at home. GVSU’s offense failed to pose any serious threat, and untimely turnovers put the defense in tough situations.

In his final college appearance, senior quarterback Kyle McMahon played his worst game of the season by tossing four interceptions and losing a fumble. He said Augustana’s speed and enthusiasm helped the Vikings take advantage of the Lakers, but took a lot of the blame upon himself.

“They got a lot of talented guys on their team,” said McMahon. “We all just played poorly, especially myself. You can’t turn the ball over five times and expect to win. That’s just the bottom line to it. That’s what I did. As the person who runs the offense, I know that I kind of let the team down in a big sense.”

Augustana’s speedy wide receiver Tyler Schulte torched GVSU’s defense for three touchdowns and broke the school’s single-season receiving touchdown record (17) in the process. But, most importantly, quarterback Josh Hanson returned from a hand injury to lead the Augustana offense. Hanson’s pocket presence and ability to run hurt the Lakers the entire game.

“They’ve got some good athletes on that side of the ball,” said senior linebacker Justin Victor. “We knew that going in. We knew we had to be physical and run around and make plays.

“They had some good schemes,” he added. “It’s disappointing.”

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