BUCKHANNON – On a cold and rainy afternoon, the West Virginia Wesleyan Bobcat football team sent their nine seniors out on a winning note here against the Fairmont State Falcons Saturday in a Mountain East Conference contest.
Many of those seniors had a huge part of the Bobcats' 34-13 victory against the Falcons.
Senior quarterback Jeremy Musselman (pictured) completed 22 of his 39 passes for 266 yards and three scores.
His first touchdown strike was to fellow senior Chase Blackwell. It was a four-yard strike with 4:58 remaining in the first quarter.
The drive started after the Wesleyan defense held Fairmont State on a fourth-and-one situation at the Bobcat 21-yard line.
The Bobcat offense put together a methodical 13-play drive that chewed up 5:28 off the first quarter clock.
Senior Kasper Bernild's extra-point kick was good to give Wesleyan a 7-0 lead.
It took Wesleyan just three plays to find paydirt on their next scoring drive.
Taking over the ball at the Fairmont State 48-yard line, Mussleman found Zach Schademan for an 11-yard pass, Michael Anderson ran it for three yards, and Mussleman found Schademan again for a 34-yard scoring strike with 8:39 left in the second quarter.
Bernild was again true on this kick that treated Wesleyan to a 14-0 lead.
Fairmont State scored on a one-yard run by Adam White that cut the lead to 14-7 lead and added another touchdown with just 16 seconds left on a 19-yard pass from Tyler Pate to Daniel Marc-Sears.
The extra-point though was blocked by Johnny Roundtree, keeping Wesleyan in the lead at the half at 14-13.
Wesleyan shutout Fairmont State in the second half.
The Bobcats added to their lead with a 30-yard field goal by Bernild with 12:15 left in the third quarter. That gave Wesleyan a 17-13 lead.
Musselman decided to run one in to go along with this three touchdown passes to up the Wesleyan lead to 24-13. His four-yard scamper came with 7:41 on the third-quarter clock.
Wesleyan tacked on one more score in the third quarter to up their lead to 31-14.
Schademan hauled in a five-yard pass from Musselman with 1:15 left on the third-quarter clock.
Bernild wrapped up the scoring for Wesleyan adding a 40-yard field goal with 10:18 showing in the fourth-quarter.
Wesleyan managed 369 yards of offense getting 266 through the air and 103 on the ground.
Schademan hauled in seven passes for 102 yards and two scores while Blackwell added five grabs for 91 yards and one score.
Anderson had six catches for 37 yards and Dylan Davis had four passes for 36 yards.
Anderson led all rushers with 60 yards on 18 carries.
Mike Savage led the defense with nine tackles while Desmond Holley had eight.
The nine seniors playing their last home game were Blackwell, Mussleman, Roundtree, Dylan Clifford, Chris Thearle, Ben Baird, Devin Shaver, Bernild and David Stanton.
Fairmont State dropped to 3-5 overall and 3-5 in the MEC.
Wesleyan improved to 4-5 overall and 4-5 in the MEC.
The Bobcats will close out their regular season next Saturday when they travel to Urbanca for a MEC clash.
Kick-off is slated for noon.
