It was a great day for football in Sioux Falls on Saturday as the Wayne State Wildcats took on the No. 17 Sioux Falls Cougars.

After a few hours of snow-filled football, the Cougars left the frozen tundra with a 63-28 win over the Wildcats.

There were several inches of snow piled on the turf by kickoff, progressively coming down thick as the game went on. The redshirt freshmen of the Cougars were ordered to scoop the snow at the hashes and yard marks throughout the game to add some type of visibility to the field.

Ryan Ludlow got the majority of the carries for the Wildcats, rushing for 252 yards on 31 carries and three touchdowns. He now ranks second in Wildcat history for most rushing yards in a single game.

Sioux Falls got on the scoreboard early with a 49-yard touchdown run by Nephi Garcia. They scored again two series later on special teams as John Tidwell had an electric 78 yard punt return to give the Cougars a 14-0 lead.

Wayne State was able to find the end zone on the next drive as Ludlow had a 14-yard touchdown run to bring the score to 14-7 with 5:39 to play in the first quarter. The Cougars took advantage of Zach Osborn’s fumble and scored three plays later on a 14-yard touchdown pass to give USF a 21-7 lead after the first quarter.

Early in the second quarter, WSC turned a Sioux Falls interception into seven points to cut the Cougar lead to 21-14. Jon Davis picked off USF quarterback Jake Papillion, and following an 18-yard return gave WSC the ball at the Cougar 35.

Osborn scored on a 21-yard run to trim the Cougar advantage to seven.

Papillion threw a 60-yard bomb to his receiver Josh Angulo to take a 28-14 lead with 2:22 remaining in the first half.

Sioux Falls blew the game open in the third quarter, scoring on four different occasions to give them a 56-28 lead after three. They scored on the first play of the second half as Garcia rambled 67 yards for the touchdown.

Midway through the third quarter, USF scored twice in a span of 14 seconds to put the game out of reach.

The first score was on a 32-yard pass from Papillion to Brady Rose. Then on the kickoff, Jonathan Parks fumbled at the WSC 27 and the ball was picked up by David Clark of Sioux Falls for a fumble return touchdown to make the score 49-14.

The Wildcats scored again late in the third quarter with Ludlow finding the end zone on an 8-yard run with 33 seconds left in the third quarter, making the score 56-28.

Sioux Falls closed out the scoring early in the fourth quarter on a Nephi Garcia one yard run to make the final score 63-28.

The Cougars ended the game with 538 yards to Wayne State’s 497. Wayne State had 415 yards on the ground and 92 passing while USF produced 313 yards rushing and 225 passing.

Ludlow moved past Zach Molacek’s 240 yards vs. MSU Moorhead in 2004 for the second-most yards in a game by a Wildcat running back with the school record being 335 yards by Elroy Brown in 1999 vs. Minnesota Morris.

Nick Monzu led Wayne State’s defense with 10 tackles and two tackles for loss. He ends his Wildcat career with 314 tackles, moving past former teammate Austan Pomajzl (2010-13) by one tackle for 10th place on the all-time WSC tackle chart.

The Wildcats ended their season on Saturday with a 5-6 record.

Nine Wayne State College football players were named to the 2014 Northern Sun Conference All-Conference Football Team, including Monzu (First Team) Cole McDaniel and Adam Stark, Taylor Jensen, Shane Finley, Jeff Van Den Top, J’Ron Erby (Second Team) while Osborn and Colton Hough were honorable mention.