Staff photo by Ari Selvey Martin Luther College's Arthur Robinson looks for running room during an Upper Midwest Athletic Conference football game against University of Minnesota Morris Saturday at MLC.

NEW ULM — Two Martin Luther College football players broke records during a 36-14 Upper Midwest Athletic Conference football win over University of Minnesota Morris on Saturday for the final game of the season.

The first was Arthur Robinson, whose 285 rushing yards was a single-game record for the Knights, along with a touchdown.

“This is our second game playing Minnesota Morris, so we knew what was happening coming into this game,” Robinson said. “We practiced for it, we thought ahead to what we were doing, but we played our own game today. We covered our blocks and we controlled them the whole game. That just caused so much success and I’m so grateful for them.”

The second was Micah Koschnitzke, whose third field goal of the day set a single-season record for field goals with nine.

“It’s been an honor to play here at MLC,” Koschnitzke said. “Thanks for all the coaches for letting me kick all those field goals. These last four years I’ve been starting kicker, it’s been really fun to be a part of this team.”

The Knights entered halftime up just 10-7 but outscored the Cougars 26-7 in the second half, including 17 fourth-quarter points. This was due to three Cougars turnovers and the continued dominance of Robinson as the game wore on.

“Its all heart,” Robinson said. “We stayed in it mentally the whole game and we decided we’re going to end the game strong. The defense, they came away with some big plays, offense continued to make plays, and we just worked.”

Also for MLC, Brady Turriff had 102 yards passing and a touchdown, while Thomas Koelpin had 42 yards and four receptions. Trenton Heyn added 21 yards and a touchdown on three catches. Defensively, Jesus Medina had eight total tackles and 1.5 sacks, while Ethan Melso had seven tackles and a 45-yard interception returned for a touchdown. Koschnitzke had another interception and five tackles, while Andrew Esmay had 3.5 sacks and a forced fumble. Nathan Schmidt and Jude Pederson each had a fumble recovery, with Schmidt returning his for a touchdown.

MLC took the opening drive 60 yards for a touchdown, with Turriff completing a 5-yard touchdown pass to Heyn for a 7-0 lead. A blocked punt by UMM’s Derrick Dohmen was recovered by Cater Watnass and returned for a touchdown to even the score to start the second quarter. Koschnitzke hit his first field goal of the day from 25 yards out to give MLC a 10-7 lead, and neither team could score for the rest of the half, taking that score into halftime.

After forcing a UMM punt, MLC extended the lead to 13-7 on Koschnitzke’s second field goal, this time from 27 yards out. On the Cougars’ next drive, a sack by Esmay forced a fumble that was picked up by Schmidt and returned 20 yards for a touchdown to increase the lead to 19-7. UMM was able to score on its next drive with a 2-yard rush by Derek Hoglin.

The UMM defense was able to force a punt, but Koschnitzke intercepted a pass to set up Robinson for a 2-yard rushing touchdown that opened the floodgates for MLC. Another interception by Melso was returned 45 yards to the house for a 44-14 lead, then the following kickoff was muffed, with Pederson recovering the ball to set up Koschnitzke for his record-breaking field goal from 38 yards out to seal the win.

“At halftime, we really talked about locking down on defense,” Koschnitzke said. “Just going back to our fundamentals and trying to finish the game. That was a great turnaround by everyone. We all stepped up there.”

MLC finishes the season with a 5-5 record.