MARYVILLE, Mo. – A big first half by No. 14 Northwest Missouri and a cold NSU offense handed the RiverHawks a 79-0 shutout at Bearcats Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

Northwest held the RiverHawks to a season-low 130 yards of offense with their defense bringing NSU's quarterbacks down in the backfield five times.

"The scoreboard is never fun to look at, but like I've said before, if we ever quit trying to win if we go out there and don't continue to fight the fight, that's where you're most concerned," said head coach J.J. Eckert.  "I mean, we are what we are right now, we're going to keep on fighting, and we just got to find a way to win a football game."

"At the end of the day, we need to continue to work out some of the fundamental things that go into that equation, gotta be able to convert on third down. We gotta be able to be on the field longer. Our defense had a lot of snaps today."

NSU's quarterbacks went 13-for-31 with 104 yards. Jacob Medrano took 21 snaps and completed nine passes for 82 yards. On the ground, they were held to a season-low 26 yards on 36 attempts.
 
Lane Yoder led the RiverHawks defense with 12 tackles, and J'Quille Washington had seven.
 
The Bearcats racked up 367 yards in the first half while their defense held the RiverHawks to 100.  Northwest held a 28-0 lead midway through the second quarter, and they found the end-zone three times in the final seven minutes.   
 
Miscues hindered the RiverHawks in the first half with 14 of the 49 Northwest points coming off turnovers.
 
In the second half, all four of the Bearcats touchdowns came on the ground as they rushed for 443 yards on the NSU defense.  Northwest finished the game with 621 yards of offense.
 
Tim Davis punted a program high 14 times, breaking the previous record by two. 
 
Saturday's loss drops the RiverHawks to 0-9 (0-9 MIAA). Northwest Missouri improves to 8-1 (8-1) with their tenth win over NSU.

"I'm proud of the way the guys continue to fight the fight because it's real easy to say that guess what it's not going the way we want it to so we throw our hands up in the air and give up and those guys didn't do that today," added Eckert.  "They kept on fighting, they kept on working, they kept on being a great teammate and that will pay off for us down the road sooner rather than later."

Northeastern State will remain on the road this upcoming Saturday and will make a trip to Edmond to play for the President's Cup against Central Oklahoma. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m.