Coach Shannon Griffith's Spartans battled the host Trine Thunder down to the game's final moments on the FieldTurf of Shive Field at the Fred Zollner Athletic Complex. MU rallied from a 17-7 halftime deficit to make it a 17-14 count and had the ball in the closing minutes with a chance to take the lead.

However, the Thunder found two key plays to enable them to hold on for a 24-14 win.

After the Black and Gold had tied the game at 7-7 late in the second quarter, senior return specialist Myron Puryear II got a lane on the ensuing kickoff and was off the races on a 92-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. That was part of a 10-point run for the home team which gave them the 17-7 edge at the half. In the fourth quarter, after Manchester was held on a fourth down attempt at its own 46 with less than two minutes to play and trailing by only three, senior quarterback Ryan Hargraves hit senior tight end Sean Collins on a 29-yard crossing route to convert a key third down that led to the final touchdown of the night.

Like the game play itself, the statistics bore out a tightly-contested affair. The Spartans out-gained their hosts 254-244 thanks to a balanced offensive attack of 128 rushing and 126 passing yards. MU also had two more first downs (16-14) and time of possession was in their favor by nearly seven minutes.

Among the individual leaders for Manchester University was the junior-sophomore backfield tandem of quarterback Nick Williams (Fort Wayne, Ind.) and running back Austin Adams (Dowagiac, Mich.). Williams cut through the middle of the Thunder defense for a nifty 18-yard touchdown scamper early in the final stanza as part of a 65-yard rushing and 130-yard passing night, while Adams carried the ball 15 times for 56 yards and MU's opening score on a four-yard plunge in the second period. Senior wide receiver Kurt Monix (Crown Point, Ind.) topped the receiving corps with five catches for 40 yards, while on the defensive side of the ball, junior linebacker Dylin Kennedy (North Manchester, Ind.) had a big season-opening effort with six and a half tackles and part of a sack to his credit.

Griffith's crew returns to non-conference play Saturday, Sept. 8, with a 1 p.m. kickoff at Kalamazoo College in Michigan.

GAME NOTES – The familiar theme of close games continued with Thursday's final. It was the fourth time in the seven-game history between the two in-state rivals that the difference was less than 10 points. … Monix's five catches moved him 19 shy of 100 for his career. … The Spartans' season-opening and Trine series loss string moved to six.