There really is no place like home. After an unfortunate 31-34 defeat at the hands of Carleton handed Hamline its first loss of the year, the Pipers returned to Klas Field for their homecoming game against St. Olaf last Saturday. For 60 minutes, the Piper offense marched up and down the field and the defense forced punt after punt, and the Pipers eventually pulled away from the Oles for a 34-16 victory.

“It was a great feeling to win this game for the seniors and a great win overall,” said junior center Bailey West. “It was awesome.”

In their first homecoming victory since their 17-14 victory over Carleton all the way back in 2000, the Pipers defeated St. Olaf behind four passing touchdowns from star sophomore quarterback Justice Spriggs, 99 rushing yards and a touchdown from sophomore running back Jaimen Hampton and a defense that held the Ole’s to just 5.5 yards per play.

“The guys just pulled together and played as a team,” said first-year offensive tackle Bradley Babin. “It was outstanding and I’m so proud of everyone.”

Forcing three punts and an interception in four of St. Olaf’s first five drives, the Hamline defense put the ball back into the offense’s hands and they didn’t waste the opportunity, scoring touchdowns after two of the punts and the interception.

“We could definitely run the ball today and that opened up our offense,” West said. “We all needed to play our part and it reflected on the scoreboard at the end.”

The Hamline rushing attack racked up 185 yards, continuing the ground game’s up and down season after consecutive weeks of the team rushing for less than 50 yards total.

“This was a new defense and we spent a lot of time learning how it works,” Babin said. “It was a struggle to learn the new defense and what we had to do to change our offense up but I think we stepped up to the challenge.”

Spriggs is well on his way to a record-breaking season after completing 20 of 28 passes for 248 yards and four touchdowns in the win. He’s on pace to break both Hamline’s single-season passing yards record and its single-season passing completions record.

“Justice is a special kid,” said head coach Chip Taylor. “He prepares the right way and wears out our offensive coaches and he’s always doing things the right way and it’s showing up on Saturdays on the football field.”

The defense was the definition of “bend but don’t break.” Despite being tested by Ole’s dual-threat junior quarterback Ricardo Johnson III and an offense throwing screen pass after screen pass to stretch the Pipers horizontally, the Pipers defense recorded four sacks, forced two fumbles and intercepted junior quarterback Jack Goldstein, who rotated in and out of the game as quarterback with Johnson.

“St. Olaf does a great job with their personnel,” Taylor said. “We didn’t know what to expect coming in and we were concerned about them spreading us out but our guys to expect coming in and we were concerned about them spreading us out but our guys were able to adjust and handle it the right way.”

Despite a few blemishes including a blocked extra point and two fumbles, the Pipers were able to send the raucous crowd of 2000 fans home happy.

“Every game we’ve had, we’ve had a great crowd,” said Taylor. “We really appreciated the crowd, them knowing when to be loud, when to be quiet, it was a fun atmosphere.”

As much as the Homecoming win is a positive for the Pipers, they can’t celebrate for long. Their schedule is about to get extremely difficult. In the next four weeks, the Pipers face all three of the teams currently ahead of them in the MIAC standings on the road, starting with their visit to Moorhead to take on Concordia (3-2, 2-1 MIAC).

“From what I heard of the score, they played pretty close with St. Thomas [last Saturday],” said West. “We definitely have to gear up for the game this Saturday.”

Concordia’s offensive threat is in its rushing attack, which has averaged 275 yards a game so far. The four players on the Cobbers with more than 30 attempts on the ground all average more than five yards a carry. Junior running back Chad Johnson leads the Cobbers with 436 yards and eight touchdowns, and junior quarterback Michael Herzog is second with 399 yards and three touchdowns.

“From my experience Concordia is one of the toughest places to play in the conference,” said Taylor. “We’ve got to be disciplined on defense, keep firing on all cylinders on offense and this game will come down to discipline; as long as we are disciplined and keep away the outside elements, we should be okay.”

The Pipers will host Augsburg this Saturday, Oct. 15 with kickoff scheduled for 3:30 p.m.