Harper makes the most of road trip

Would a long road trip turn into an even longer Saturday for a Harper College football team looking to rebound from its first loss?

The Hawks, ranked 15th in the NJCAA/JCFootball.com poll, trailed midway through the second quarter of their Midwest Football Conference game with the North Dakota School of Science.

But sophomore quarterback Garrett Barnas threw 3 touchdown passes and ran for two scores as Harper (5-1, 4-1) scored 28 unanswered points and held on for a 35-27 victory in Wahpeton, N.D.

Barnas was 22-for-34 passing for 223 yards to become only the second quarterback in Harper history to throw for more than 4,000 yards. Barnas needs 225 yards to break the record of 4,434 set by Griff Jurgens in 1999-2000.

Barnas' 11-yard touchdown pass to Kyle Sanders and his second 7-yard touchdown run put Harper ahead 21-14 at halftime.

Touchdown passes of 13 yards to John Baldwin and 7 yards to Eric Watts put the Hawks up 35-14 with less than 14 minutes to play. But in the final 5:15, NDSOS (2-4, 1-4) scored twice and had one last shot at forcing overtime.

But a big sack and quarterback pressure by defensive end Kyle Jenkins put Harper into a first-place tie with Iowa Central and Ellsworth.

Barnas also rushed for 70 yards and Tafari Mahou caught 5 passes for 68 yards for the Hawks, who host North Iowa Area CC at 1 p.m. next Saturday.