Despite a two hour pre-game rain delay, the Vikings handedly defeated the Millikin Big Blue by a score of 40-14 during Augustana’s 99th Homecoming game on Saturday.
The Vikings took the lead in the first quarter and held on to it thanks to the effort of senior running back, Bobby Jarosz, who had one touchdown on the day and rushed  for a career high of 143  yards. The senior was a sparkplug for the Augustana offense. 
On the defensive side of the ball,  senior defensive end Xavier Holley had a career high five sacks and added seven and a half tackles for loss to the Vikings effort.
 “That is an Augie high for me. Our line gave me holes and I was able to run through them. We have a group of great backs and great linemen,” Jarosz said.
Augustana never looked back after the score on their first drive. The Vikings capitalized on a John Kappel interception with a field goal making the score 10-0 in the first quarter. After some back and forth play between the two teams in the second quarter the Vikings struck again.
Quarterback Zach Fuller connected with the Vikings leading receiver, Tom Dolis on a 33 yard pass, but the point after attempt fell short and Augustana took  a 16-0 lead heading into halftime.
Millikin was the first to strike coming out of halftime as a blocked punt set them up with a short field. Millikin found the end zone making the score 16-7 with 11 minutes left in the third quarter.
The Vikings responded with four unanswered scores including touchdown runs by Alek Jacobs and Jarosz in the third quarter. 
In the fourth quarter, the Vikings added a 29 yard field goal from junior kicker Owen Ennis and a three yard touchdown pass from Jacobs to junior tight end Mike Riley. 
Millikin added a score in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter to get to the final score of 40-14. 
Augustana Vikings head coach, Steve Bell, didn’t think the rain delay was a big deal for his experienced  team. 
“Both teams had to deal with the rain delay so I don’t think that was an advantage either way,” Bell said.
After the game, Holley reflected on his performance.  
“It felt great. I think the most sacks I have had in one game is two. In high school I only had one sack at most in a game,” Holley said.“It feels awesome – we have never beat Millikin since I’ve been here and it feels good to beat them on our own field.” 
The Vikings turned in strong performances on both sides of the ball. The offense compiled 412 yards with 244 of them coming from the run game. The defense limited Millikin to 381 total yards and just 60 on the rushing attack. 
“We don’t have to score 40 points a game to win, especially looking back to Wesleyan last week. Our defense played great. That’s why this game was nice to get us back on track because last week we were stuck in the red zone a couple times but today we triumphed in the red zone,” Jarosz said.
The Augustana Vikings are 3-1 overall and 2-1 in conference play as they go to Naperville on Saturday, Oct. 12  against the nationally ranked North Central college.