NEW ULM — Defense keyed the Martin Luther College Knights on Saturday afternoon in their Homecoming win over the University of Morris Cougars.

The Knights wracked up five turnovers and got a last-minute touchdown run from senior Rees Roecker to electrify the MLC Bowl and earn a 21-14 win in an Upper Midwest Athletic Conference football game.

Just when it seemed like the Knights (3-1, 1-0) had hit a wall with their offense and gave the Cougars (1-3, 0-1) a good chance to put the game away in the final minutes, Ehlke picked off UMM quarterback Hayden Charboneau on third-and-15, taking it 17 yards to the Cougars 38-yard line with 1:51 left to play.

“As coach said on the sideline, he said, ‘Big players make big plays,'” Ehlke said. “And I wasn’t the only one out there that made one. I was happy that I could do my job out there and make one, but our defense, the entire game we were just getting back on the field, we knew we couldn’t let them score.

“We gave up that one big play in the first quarter and after that we said that we weren’t going to let them score after that. [Our defense] didn’t let them score [after that] … [We] just played hard-nosed football because they’re one of the better teams in the conference, we were going to come in for a dog fight and I was super happy with the way that our defense played every down, we were just going at it.”

Roecker then pounded the ball up the middle six times, one run for 19 yards, before powering into the end zone for a 4-yard TD run with five seconds left in the game to put MLC on top.

“We just tried to get to the end zone, at least in field-goal distance,” Roecker said of the Knights’ final drive. “If we scored, then we knew we were going to win. This game is huge because Morris is a great team, their defense played hard, offense played hard, just a good win.”

The Cougars’ Jacob Miranda did give the Knights one last scare when he had a nice kickoff return following Roecker’s go-ahead score, taking it 47 yards across midfield. The Knights were able to trip him up at the MLC 44, however, to finalize the game.

In addition to Ehlke’s interception, David Baumann also had an interception return for 30 yards in the second half that set the Knights up at the UMM 7-yard line. The Cougars got a strong defensive effort back, however, and forced an MLC turnover on downs at the goal line with 6:56 left to play.

Both teams exchanged punts after that before UMM had its final drive that ended in Ehlke’s big interception.

Roecker finished the game with 35 carries for 173 yards and two touchdown rushes, while Knights quarterback Brady Turriff completed 7 of 25 passes for a touchdown and an interception. Turiff’s touchdown throw came just before halftime when he threw a deep pass up the middle to Jude Pederson in single coverage for a 38-yard TD pass and a 14-7 lead at halftime.

Charboneau finished completing 7 of 18 passes for 136 yards and two interceptions.

The Cougars got on the board first in the opening quarter after blocking a Micah Koschnitzke field goal try of 16 yards. On the next play, Miranda, a wide receiver, threw a short pass to Manny Guy, who took it 87 yards for a touchdown.

MLC got a nice special teams play of its own with less than seven minutes left in the first quarter when Baumann blocked a punt that was recovered by Matthew Hillmer and returned 6 yards to the UMM 4-yard line. MLC wasted no time tying it up when Roecker carried the ball to the right for a 4-yard TD run on the first play of the next drive.

Thomas Balge led the Knights in tackles with 12, while Baumann added eight tackles and a sack to go with his interception and blocked punt. Andrew Esmay had a big game for the MLC defense also with 2 1/2 sacks, two of them being strip sacks and fumble recoveries for the Knights.

NOTE: An extended story with additional comments and photos will be published in Tuesday’s edition of The Journal and available online at www.nujournal.com.