Dordt College overcame a 14 point deficit and a 13 point deficit to win its season opener with a 61-40 win over the Waldorf Warriors in Forest City, Iowa on Saturday night.
Both teams scored on their first possessions with Waldorf marching 75 yards to open the game and Dordt went 57 yards on its first drive and capped the drive with a Keithen Drury 30 yard run.
Waldorf scored on the next two possessions with 55 and 47 yard drives for a 21-7 lead early in the second quarter.
Noah Clayberg scored the first of two touchdowns on a screen pass from Brock Lamle with 12:10 left in the half but Waldorf answered with a score of its own followed by a Levi Jungling touchdown reception with 9:50 left in the half that covered 59 yards.
The hosts again had an answer on the warm and muggy night with a 17 yard drive after Dordt surrendered the ball deep in its own territory.
Trailing 33-21 the Defenders again went to Clayberg who took a Lamle screen for 44 yards with 2:26 left in the half.
The Dordt defense forced fumble when David Kacmarynski jarred the ball loose at the Waldorf 45 and Tyson Dahlgrin recovered with less than a minute to go.
A Lamle completion to Levi Jungling for 35 yards got Dordt in striking position and with four seconds left in the half Lamle found Jake Dodge for a 12 yard score to put the Defenders up 34-33 after the two-point try failed.
The Defenders scored on their first five possessions of the second half and scored 40 unanswered points at one point to pull away in the second half.
Clayberg caught his third touchdown pass for 25 yards to put Dordt up eight and Brock Lamle had a pair of touchdown runs as well as the Defenders ran away with the game late.
