Sam Thiel/Winonan

After a season-opening loss last week in Moorhead, the Winona State University football team bounced back on its home field, earning a 38-7 victory against Minot State Saturday afternoon in Winona.

“It feels awesome,” coach Tom Sawyer said. “Obviously there’s a lot of pressure on our program, we have high expectations of these guys, every play matters. The kids really came out hard this week in practice and it showed up on our play today. It kind of takes the pressure off of us and we know that we can continue to work and get better. But now we can but that game behind us knowing what a good football game feels like.”

The Warriors, who recorded only a pair of field goals all of last year, got a leg up from sophomore kicker Carter McCauley, who went 3-for-3 on the afternoon. After netting a 25-yard attempt in the first quarter to put Winona State up 3-0, he nailed a 53-yard attempt with 10 seconds left in the half to give the Warriors a 20-7 lead. The field goal broke the program record in the process.

McCauley then beat that mark with a 54-yarder in the fourth quarter to break his own record. The previous record was 47 yards, established by Cullen Fahey in 2008 against Concordia-St. Paul.

“My leg’s a little tired,” McCauley said. “It felt very good. Everything was coming together, good snap, good hold and all I had to do was kick it.”

The air attack for Winona State was on display, with quarterback Jack Nelson going for 303 yards passing and a trio of touchdowns, one to each of his top receivers in Alan May, Josh Mikes and Cameron Johnson. May ended the afternoon with three catches for 90 yards while Mikes snagged four catches for 88 yards and Johnson hauled in four receptions for 51 yards.

After McCauley’s field goal in the first quarter, Winona State built a 10-0 lead with an 11-yard touchdown connection from Nelson to Johnson on the first play of the second quarter.

The Beavers cut the deficit to 10-7 when Jarvis Mustipher had a one-yard rushing score, but that was all Minot State got.

The Warriors increased their lead 48 seconds later with just two plays, ending with a 62-yard connection from Nelson to May for the 17-7 advantage. McCauley made it 20-7 heading into the half with the 53-yarder.

Winona State recorded 200 passing yards in the first half, while Minot State managed to get just 90. The Warriors struggled on the ground, however, with only five yards rushing on 16 attempts.

Nelson found the hands of Mikes for a 21-yard strike with 3:39 left in the third quarter. Mikes then completed a tightrope catch in the back corner to finish the two-point conversion and gave the Warriors a 28-7 lead.

McCauley’s second field goal of the afternoon from over 50 yards put Winona State up 31-7 in the fourth before redshirt freshman Eric Birth capped the scoring on a 5-yard touchdown rush with 4:51 remaining to make the final score of 38-7.

Birth, who used the majority of the clock in the fourth, ended up being the team’s top rusher, running for 49 yards on just eight carries.

Nelson finished his afternoon with 19 completions on 33 attempts for 303 yards, three touchdowns and a couple of interceptions.

“I wouldn’t say I played my best game and they did some things that we didn’t see before,” Nelson said. “But it was a great confidence booster after last week’s rough performance and it might help solve some of our issues and get our confidence back up. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what the stats were as long as we get the ‘W.’”

Defensively, Collin Corcoran led the way with eight tackles. Jeff Brown added two sacks and a trio of tackles-for-loss to couple with six total tackles. Brown forced a fumble as well for the Warriors.

“It was just good to see everybody get something today because without those ten guys, I’m nothing,” Brown said. “It was a collective effort, that’s how we practice. We understand the defense, we pay attention week in and week out and detail to our film. Our goal is to dominate and when both sides are playing well I like our chances against anybody.”

Winona State also had a trio of picks, including a 48-yard return from Andrew Spencer, with Aikan Major and Mike Imperiale adding one each as well.

Austin Opfer recorded seven tackles, two of those going for a loss of yards while adding a sack. As a team, the Warriors limited Minot State to 215 yards of total offense while Winona State posted 400 yards of offense.

The win also eliminated a five-game losing streak for the Warriors.

Winona State (1-1) travels to Bemidji State Saturday night to face the Beavers. Kick-off is set for 6 p.m.