Mercyhurst football’s redshirt junior quarterback, Brendan Boylan (13) completed 37 of his 49 passes and threw for 544 yards dur: Salina Bowe
.Redshirt senior tight end R.J. Miller (25) above, scoring a touchdown during Saturday’s 59-49 Laker win. He scored two touchdown: Salina Bowe

In a shootout against California University of Pennsylvania, redshirt junior quarterback Brendan Boylan broke five school records. The broken records were the single game school record for completions, passing yards, passing touchdowns, total offensive yards and total touchdowns responsible for.

He led Mercyhurst to a 59-49 win on Saturday, Nov. 8, at Tullio Field.

Completing 37 of his 49 passes, Boylan recorded 544 yards through the air and six touchdowns, while also adding 19 yards and another score on the ground.

Boylan credits this performance to everyone being on the same page.

“Everybody on offense stepped up, the o-line blocking, and running back’s reacting in split second scenarios, it was a great team win yesterday,” Boylan said.

As a whole, the Laker offense put up arcade-like numbers, this time setting a school record with 640 total yards, breaking their previous record of 628 yards which was achieved against Gannon last season.

However, Cal’s offense was on fire as well.

Led by quarterback James Harris, the Cal offense scored 14 points early in the first quarter as Harris connected with Kowan Scott on a nine yard pass for a touchdown. Shortly after, Cal marched down the field for 77 yards followed by a Terrell Robinson 4-yard touchdown run.

The first quarter was slow for the Lakers, as they were only able to put three on the board after a 29-yard field goal by sophomore Dylan Kondis.

The second quarter is when Boylan began to answer with his stellar play, finding redshirt senior Stephen Yarbrough on a 3-yard pass to the end zone, depleting the Cal lead to 14-10.

Mercyhurst gained the 17-14 lead after Boylan and the offense drove 80 yards down the field ending with a one-yard sneak by the quarterback himself.

But with just 1:44 seconds to play at the half, Cal was able to drive 65 yards and take a 21-17 lead.

Despite this, the Lakers came out after halftime confident.

Boylan had three touchdown passes in the third quarter: The first to redshirt senior tight end R.J. Miller, the second to Yarbrough, and the third to Miller again, putting the Lakers up 38-21.

However, California was not going out easy, as they were able to storm back in the fourth quarter due to huge plays from Harris and Garry Brown. This pair met for three touchdowns in the final quarter on pass plays of 76, 75 and 47 yards.

The Lakers still prevailed in the end as redshirt freshman Alex Misterman recorded his first career rushing touchdown.

Aiding Boylan’s stellar performance was Yarbrough. On just 12 receptions, Yarbrough racked up 238 receiving yards and three touchdowns. This broke the school record for most receiving yards in a game.

“We knew Cal was going to be a tough team, but we knew how to go out there and win,” Yarbrough said.

“This offensive spurt has been all about coming together and working as a team, from the offensive line, to the quarterback, everybody has contributed to it.”

Other contributors to Boylan’s record-setting day was Miller who had six catches for 82 yards and two scores, redshirt junior fullback T.J. Latimer who had six receptions for 51 yards and a touchdown, and junior Dylan Bongiorni who had four receptions for 93 yards.

Senior Colin Kimball led the Laker defense, recording five tackles and two interceptions, Marking 13 total interceptions for his career.

With this game in the bag, the Lakers gained their six straight win moving to a 6-4 record.

Their last game is at home Saturday, Nov. 8, against Shippensburg University. This will be senior day for the players