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Wheeling, W. Va.\u00a0\u2013\u00a0After a close battle in North Canton, Ohio last week, the Wheeling University Football team (1-1, 0-0) returns to the friendly confides of Bishop Schmitt Field for week three. The Cardinals wrap up their non-conference schedule when they welcome in Lake Erie with kick-off at 4 PM.\u00a0It is the first of back-to-back home games for the Cardinals as they continue a stretch that has seen them play three of their first four games at home.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In week two, the Cardinals would travel to North Canton, Ohio for a match-up against Walsh that came down to the wire. The first half was dominated by defense\u00a0with neither team getting on the board for the first 15 minutes. Walsh would be the first to strike with a touchdown at the 9:51\u00a0mark, and\u00a0added a field goal heading into halftime that made it\u00a09-0 Cavalier lead. The\u00a0Cardinals would make their\u00a0halftime adjustments and needed just a minute and a half to respond. It would be the start of a 14-point quarter for the Cardinals, but Walsh added two touchdowns of their own and led 23-14 heading into the final 15 minutes. With 8:50 to play, the Cardinals found the endzone for the third time\u00a0and got to within 23-21. However, that was as close as they would get\u00a0as they fell 23-21 to fall to 1-1 on the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was a historic weekend for quarterback Landon Lutz<\/a>, who became the program’s all-time leading passer in the effort.\u00a0After becoming the third quarterback in program history to reach 4,000 passing yards\u00a0the week prior, he stands alone at the top after going\u00a016-31,\u00a0throwing for\u00a0252, one touchdown, and one interception. With the team fighting to stay\u00a0alive, Lutz would get them to within two points of Walsh with a\u00a049-yard touchdown strike\u00a0to Solo Love<\/a> to make the score 16-14. Lutz has thrown for\u00a0458 yards\u00a0through the first two games of the season games,\u00a0averaging\u00a0242.5 yards\u00a0per game to rank second in the conference\u00a0behind Frostburg State’s Jordan Brooks. Lutz currently sits at\u00a04,283 yards\u00a0and looks to continue building on that record throughout the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n On the defensive end, it was a career-best day for Dillon Shadie<\/a>, who led the early push to keep the Cavaliers off the board. He would set a new career-high with nine tackles,\u00a0four solo and five\u00a0assisted,\u00a0while adding 1.5 tackles for loss.\u00a0The effort helped\u00a0propelled\u00a0him into the team lead with 13.0 tackles on the season. He picked up his first career interception during the team’s week 0 match-up with Thomas More and sits second on the team with two pass\u00a0break-ups on the year. In the ground game, there was another career-best effort courtesy of Ayden McKinstry<\/a>. After bursting onto the scene against Thomas\u00a0More\u00a0McKinstry would lead the way with\u00a088 yards on 11 carries and added three catches for 31 yards. He would also score his first career touchdown as the Cardinal’s opening score to start\u00a0the second half, wrapping up a career day for the sophomore.\u00a0<\/p>\n As they head into their final non-conference match, the Cardinals will continue a stretch that has seen them play three of their first four\u00a0on their home field.\u00a0As an offense, the team is averaging the fifth most points in the conference at 24.0 per game, with all of those coming in the second half.\u00a0Wheeling’s offense will look to get going early against a Lake Erie\u00a0squad that scored 35 points in their season-opener against\u00a0Saint Anslem College.\u00a0On the defensive side, the Cardinals have held the opposition\u00a0to just nine first half\u00a0points, and\u00a0lead the conference with 16.5 points allowed per game. They have allowed 10 fewer points than the next closest team and will look to be the driving force against Lake Erie.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Match-up\u00a0<\/p>\n The Cardinals and Storm are meeting for the second time in program history, with Wheeling leading the all-time series at 1-0. After making the trip to Painesville, Ohio last season, Wheeling will be welcoming Lake Erie College to\u00a0Bishop Schmitt Field for the first time. Storm Head Coach Brian Price will have a homecoming, after being a member of Wheeling’s inaugural coaching staff in 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n The first meeting between the two teams came back on September 13, 2025, in a game that Wheeling would win 35-31.\u00a0Leading the way for the Cardinals was former running back Steven Mitchell<\/a>, who rushed for\u00a0117 yards\u00a0and two touchdowns, while O’Marion Taylor<\/a> added a rushing touchdown of his own. Former Cardinal Ade Olanegan<\/a> would lead the passing game, going 7-9 for\u00a0205 yards\u00a0and two touchdowns, while Jordan Kaiser<\/a> pulled in three catches for\u00a0120 yards\u00a0and a touchdown.\u00a0Former Cardinal Leonard Sherrod III<\/a> led the defense with 10 tackles, six\u00a0solo\u00a0and four\u00a0assisted.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Details\u00a0<\/p>\n Kick-off for Saturday’s game is scheduled for 4 PM inside Bishop Schmitt Field. You can watch the game live by clicking HERE<\/a> or follow along with Live Stats by clicking HERE<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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Wheeling, W. Va.\u00a0\u2013\u00a0After a close battle in North Canton, Ohio last week, the Wheeling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":["post-284084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}