No. 7 Wabash University maintained its perfect season with a 37-12 victory against Washington University on Saturday at Francis Field.

With Wabash’s offense averaging nearly 500 yards per game this season, the Bears could do little to contain the Little Giants, who accumulated 499 yards against the Bear defense.

“Our goal going into the week was to hold them to 100 yards rushing, so that was kind of our mindset, especially after giving up a lot of yards in the road game the previous week. As you can see from the stats, they still got 500 yards of total offense on us,” a captain and linebacker Adam Hartzler, a senior, said.

Wabash quarterback Matt Hudson threw for 277 yards and four touchdown passes while receiver Kody LeMond totaled 165 yards. Running backs Bobby Kimp and Derrick Yoder amassed a combined total of 175 yards as well.

On the other side of the ball, Wabash held Wash. U. to 221 yards, with only 14 coming via the ground.

“They had a pretty good defense, and they forced us to pass a lot of the time…Also, we were down, which forced us to pass, so I don’t feel like we got that many chances to run in the first place,” sophomore running back Jim O’Brien said.

However, at times, the game looked like a defensive struggle, as evidenced by a scoreless first quarter.

With 13:38 left in the second quarter, Wabash struck first with a 30-yard touchdown pass. The 10-play, 92-yard drive lasted just more than four minutes. The Little Giants then displayed their running game with a six-run 78-yard drive, culminating with a 17-yard run into the end zone by Kimp to made the score 14-0. Yoder had a 26-yard run during the drive, and Kimp had an 18-yard run as well with the touchdown.

“We had seen speed like that in the past, but I think their offense line really is what propelled them in their victory. They had a bunch of big guys up front that were creating some big holes for these guys to run through. Those running backs were real good at setting up their blocks and taking advantage of any mistakes we made,” Hartzler said.

Wash. U. answered on the subsequent drive. Junior Greg Lachaud caught a pass from senior quarterback Buck Smith and took it 73 yards to the Wabash four-yard line. This set up an easy one-yard scamper for a touchdown by Smith. The extra-point attempt by sophomore Tim P. Johnson was blocked, but the Bears had cut into the lead, 14-6.

Junior defensive back Tim Machan picked off Hudson’s first pass on the next drive and returned it 26 yards to set up the Bears’ next score. Three plays later, Smith threw a 19-yard pass to senior receiver Kyle Gray to cut the lead to two points and put Wash. U. in position to tie the game. The two-point attempt, however, was tipped and incomplete.

The Little Giants answered with the final score of the quarter with a 34-yard field goal to make the score 17-12.

While Wash. U. stayed close to Wabash in the first half, the second half became a Wabash rout. After forcing a three-and-out from Wash. U., Wabash scored a touchdown on a 13-play drive. After stopping the Little Giants team on third-and-goal, Hudson completed a three-yard pass for the score. The following two-point conversion extended the lead to 13 points.

The Bears’ offense struggled to keep up with Wabash, as two more touchdowns were added to the score in favor of the visiting team: a 47-yard pass coming in the third quarter and a 52-yard touchdown pass in the fourth to make the score 37-12.

“Our guys played hard. I thought that we gave a great effort. We didn’t make some plays at the appropriate moments. We did a great job putting ourselves into the football game in that second quarter, but we just didn’t take care of business in the third quarter,” Head Coach Larry Kindbom said. “We’re still a good football team. We still have good people. We just didn’t do what we needed to do to win a game like that.”

The Bears (3-2) travel to The College of Wooster next Saturday and look to get back on track against the Fighting Scots.