Northwood football routs Lake Erie 41-7 behind 10 sacks and moves to 7-0 for the first time since 2005

PAINESVILLE, Ohio — Northwood University beat Lake Erie College 41-7 on Saturday, giving the Midland school its first 7-0 football start since 2005.

The 10th-ranked Timberwolves sacked the Storm 10 times and held them to 152 yards of offense, according to MLive and the Midland Daily News. Northwood is 5-0 in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference. Lake Erie fell to 3-4 overall and 1-4 in the league.

Quarterback Ethan Hamby, a junior from Macomb Dakota, completed 22 of 31 passes for 342 yards and three touchdowns, with two interceptions. He became the first quarterback in program history to pass for more than 5,000 career yards and now has 5,295, the Midland Daily News reported.

Carter Minix caught nine passes for 156 yards. His 77-yard touchdown catch with 39 seconds left in the third quarter made it 24-7, according to the scoring summary Lake Erie posted. Hamby added fourth-quarter scoring throws of 20 yards to Jake Townsend, a Croswell-Lexington graduate, and 52 yards to Gerry Hanson, a sophomore from Anchor Bay, MLive reported.

Northwood led 17-0 at halftime. Marquan Braswell scored on a 1-yard run in the first quarter, Brandon Martin ran 5 yards for a touchdown in the second, and Drew Cady kicked a 38-yard field goal 53 seconds before the break, the scoring summary shows. Cady, a sophomore from Oxford, added a 30-yarder early in the fourth quarter.

Lake Erie’s only score came early in the third quarter, when Hakeem Quran finished an eight-play, 65-yard drive with a 4-yard run to cut the lead to 17-7. The Storm later missed a field goal, Lake Erie’s recap said, and Northwood scored the last 24 points.

The Timberwolves came in leading NCAA Division II in run defense, at 40 yards a game, and in sacks, at 4.67 a game, the Midland Daily News reported. Lake Erie ran for 46 yards. Carter Fay had three of the 10 sacks, according to MLive, and Isaiah McGarry led Northwood with nine tackles.

Northwood outgained Lake Erie 404 yards to 152, though the Storm held the ball longer, 32:56 to 27:04, according to the box score.

The Timberwolves host Ohio Dominican at noon Saturday, Oct. 24, at Hantz Stadium in Midland.

Sources:
Lake Erie College Athletics, “No. 10 Northwood Pulls Away Late Against the Storm,” Oct. 17, 2026 (recap, scoring summary, team statistics, records), https://lakeeriestorm.com/news/2026/10/17/football-no-10-northwood-pulls-away-late-against-the-storm.aspx
Midland Daily News, “No. 10 NU wins big, improves to 7-0 for first time in 21 years,” Oct. 17, 2026 (first 7-0 start since 2005, Hamby’s 5,295 career passing yards, Division II rushing defense and sack leads, tackles, next game), https://www.ourmidland.com/sports/article/no-10-nu-wins-big-improves-7-0-first-time-21-22482052.php
MLive, “Northwood, Alma College cruise to easy wins,” Oct. 17, 2026 (No. 10 ranking, players’ hometowns, Fay’s three sacks, Oct. 24 noon game), https://www.mlive.com/sports/saginaw-bay-city/2026/10/northwood-alma-college-cruise-to-easy-wins.html
Photo: Northwood University, “Hantz Stadium.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), cropped and color-adjusted, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hantz_Stadium.jpg

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Tags: Midland · Sports · College Football · Northwood University · Lake Erie College · G-MAC · NCAA Division II