Black Hills State football dropped its home opener to Colorado Mesa, 56-7 Saturday afternoon at Lyle Hare Stadium.

Nolan Susel led the BHSU offense in yards with 24 on the ground on 17 rushes, and in the air with 93 yards on six receptions.

Chance Eben passed for 140 yards and a touchdown, completing 10 of his 18 passing attempts.

Hasaan Williams scored the lone touchdown for the Yellow Jackets with a 27-yard reception in the first quarter.

Bailey Rosenstrauch led the defense with 20 tackles, including two for a loss. Ryder Blair added 13 tackles of his own.

After recovering a fumble on CMU's opening drive, the Yellow Jackets struck first as Eben found Williams in the end zone for a 27-yard touchdown to get out to an early 7-0 lead.

Colorado Mesa answered with a 72-yard touchdown on a rush by Jesse Rodriquez on their first play of the following drive to even the score. The Mavericks would score again before the end of the first quarter on a 4-yard rush by D'aris McMillan to take a 14-7 lead into the second quarter.

The BHSU defense held CMU scoreless for nearly all of the second quarter, until the Mavericks found the endzone to go up 21-7 into the break.

Out of the half, Colorado Mesa took advantage of an interception, returning it 41 yards for a touchdown, and played add-on the rest of the way.

McMillan added two more rushing touchdowns in the second half to extend the CMU lead to 42-7 with 13:52 left to play. Touchdown receptions from Josh Bist (11 yards) and BJ Brown (14 yards) put the final touches on the CMU 56-7 victory.

Up Next
The Yellow Jackets hit the road again for an Oct. 24 meeting at Chadron State next Saturday, kickoff is scheduled for 2 p.m.