CSU-Pueblo's comeback bid falls short after forcing double OT against Grand Valley State

The CSU-Pueblo ThunderWolves headed to Albanie, MI to take on the No. 5 ranked Grand Valley State Lakers on Saturday.

The No. 25 ranked Pack team gave the Lakers all they could handle in this double-overtime thriller of a game. With the Pack down 21 points, they clawed their way back to force overtime; however, their comeback bid fell just short in the end.

The ThunderWolves defense — despite giving up the 21-point lead — played their hearts out and the special teams made some historic plays as well. Chance Fuller led the Pack going 29-49 for 338 yards with five touchdowns and only one interception.

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ThunderWolves force 2OTs

The first half of this game was quite a doozy to follow. The Thunderwolves gave up two early touchdowns in the first quarter and went down 14-0. Their offense was stagnant, and their defense was laboring to keep up with the Laker's offense.

Early in the second quarter, the Lakers scored again to go up 21-0 with about ten minutes left in the half. The ThunderWolves finally got their offense working as they scored on their next possession, with a five-minute drive that ended with Fuller tossing a touchdown pass to Reggie Retzlaff.

Shortly after, the ThunderWolves blocked a field goal attempt by the Lakers and Eli Pittman returned it for a touchdown. It goes down as the longest blocked field goal returned for a touchdown in ThunderWolves history as Pittman went 60 yards to make it a 21-14 game.

The ThunderWolves were stunned early, to say the least; however, they were not out of this half.

Even after the Lakers scored on their next possession to make it a 28-14 game, they drove down the field and scored with just over a minute left in the half to close the gap to 28-21.

On the ensuing kickoff, Grand Valley State took the ball 94 yards and the touchdown to go up again 35-21.

The second half was an epic story for the ThunderWolves. After battling from being down 21-0, the ThunderWolves came out of the locker room and stopped the Lakers on their opening drive and promptly went down and scored to cut the lead to 35-28.

The Pack’s defense was on point in the second half, getting big stop after big stop.

With the team down just one score, the offense was trying to get past the Laker's defense in the third quarter to no avail. Then, the Lakers lost their starting quarterback late in the fourth quarter which proved to be a bit costly for the top-five ranked team.

Early in the fourth quarter, the ThunderWolves offense was finally getting into a groove again when Fuller was picked off.

What seemed like a shot in the heart of the momentum for the Pack, turned out to be just a small minor inconvenience as the defense intercepted the Laker's backup quarterback right after and returned it for a touchdown to tie the game 35-35.

However, the Laker’s running back Tariq Reid carried the team and the ball down the field to put the home team up again this time 42-35 with just under three minutes remaining in the game.

Fuller and the ThunderWolves had to mount one more comeback to force overtime. As time dwindled away on the clock, the Pack methodically marched down the field. Taking chunk plays, after chunk play.

After reaching the red zone with less than a minute left on the clock, Fuller found Retzlaff for another touchdown connection and the Pack tied the game with four seconds left on the clock to force overtime.

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The Thunderwolves received the ball first in overtime and immediately scored against the Lakers to take the 49-42 lead.

Grand Valley scored as well on their first play of overtime and tied it right up 49-49. The Lakers got the ball to start the second overtime. They scored again on their first play and converted the 2-point conversion to make it a 57-49 game.

Fuller and the ThunderWolves had to muster up one more drive to keep the game going, but on fourth down with four yards to go from the endzone, Fuller's pass fell incomplete, and the ball game ended in double overtime 57-49.

The Pack (1-1) will head back home and host Western Colorado at 2 p.m. on Saturday at the ThunderBowl

Christopher Abdelmalek is a sports reporter for the Pueblo Chieftain and can be reached at cabdelmalek@gannett.com or on Twitter: @chowebacca. Support local news, subscribe to The Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: No. 25 CSU-Pueblo loses in double OT against No. 5 Grand Valley State