THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. - Mason Cotton caught two first-half touchdown passes, from 71 yards and 13 yards, to help stake the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps football team to a 28-13 halftime lead, and the Stags went on to take a 31-13 win over Cal Lutheran in its SCIAC opener on Saturday evening.

With the win, CMS moves to 3-0 on the season, after picking up non-conference wins over Chicago and George Fox.  Cal Lutheran slips to 0-3 on the year with the defeat. 

Justin Edwards rushed for 94 yards and a touchdown as he extended his program records to 48 overall touchdowns and 47 rushing. George Kruger and Grady Johnson led the defense with six tackles apiece, while Harry Zhou had two sacks and Thanio Bright tallied an interception and a forced fumble. 

CMS used a big play strike from Walter Kuhlenkamp to Mason Cotton on the first possession. Kuhlenkamp threw a 15-yard pass to Edwards to move the ball from the CMS 14-yard line to the 29-yard line, and after an incompletion, the connected with Cotton down the right sideline for a 71-yard score. 

The Stag defense followed with a stop as Michael Houk made a tackle for a two-yard loss on 4th-and-2, and the offense took advantage of the short field to score again. Kuhlenkamp connected with Daniel Rosenberg for a 480yard pass to the Cal Lutheran seven, and Peter Boehm ran it in from five yards out to make it a 14-0 game just over five minutes into the contest. 

Tarius Hamlin had a sack on 3rd-and-10 to kill a Cal Lutheran drive in the second quarter with the score 14-3, and after a punt, Edwards had a 49-yard rush down to the Cal Lutheran 21. On 3rd-and-12 from the 13, Boehm found Cotton with a clutch touchdown reception to push the lead to 21-3. 

Cal Lutheran had a 75-yard touchdown to get back within 21-10, and threatened to get closer, but Kirby Baynes made a tackle at the five-yard line on third down, and Houk blocked the ensuing field goal. Kuhlenkamp then had a 30-yard run and a 30-yard pass to Cotton on successive plays, and Edwards finished off the drive with a two-yard touchdown run to make it a 28-10 game.

The Kingsmen got a field goal with 16 seconds left to make it 28-13, but the CMS defense shut out Cal Lutheran in the second half to end up on the winning end of a 31-13 final. Benjamin Littlefield and Caleb Chang stuffed a run on 4th-and-1 to end the first Cal Lutheran drive of the second half, and Johnson had a big sack to stop their second drive. Bright then forced a fumble with 6:00 left in the third that was recovered by Jacob O'Connell, and had an interception on the next possession with 1:57 left in the third.  

In the fourth, Houk killed another drive with a four-yard sack on 3rd-and-1, followed by a pass break-up on 4th-and-5. 

CMS will be back in action next week when it travels to Pomona-Pitzer for the annual Sixth Street Trophy game at 7 p.m.