The Shippensburg University football team celebrated Senior Day on Saturday by putting on a clinic in a 69-20 rout of Mercyhurst University.

The seniors stole the spotlight, as every skill-position offensive senior found the end zone in a fairly one-sided affair.

After Mercyhurst scored mid-way through the first quarter on a 17-yard rush by Brandon Brown-Dukes, Shippensburg quickly answered back when Ryan Zapoticky hooked up with Paryss Marshall for a 19-yard touchdown pass, tying the game at seven apiece. It was all Red Raiders from then on.

Shippensburg would go on to score three unanswered touchdowns, taking a commanding 28-7 lead with 9:49 left to play in the second quarter. Turnovers started to plague Mercyhurst and Shippensburg quickly turned the game into a rout, going into halftime with a 41-14 lead.

In the first half of play, Zapoticky broke two school records. He broke the school single-season record for rushing yards by a quarterback in a game with 140 yards rushing. He also set the single-season rushing yards by a quarterback school record with 561 rushing yards on the season. The previous school record for quarterback rushing yards in a single game stood for 50 years and was held by former Red Raider Ralph Sassaman.

“It’s only one name that goes in the record book, but really it should be the 2015 Red Raider offense,” Zapoticky said.

“It’s definitely a group effort with the guys up front and the receivers blocking down field. I can’t begin to tell you how good of a job they did, and my hat goes off to those guys,” Zapoticky said when asked about breaking two school records in the blowout win.

It was a record-setting day for the many members of the football team, as many school single-season and career records were broken in Saturday’s game. Senior Andrew Smith set a new single-season all-purpose yardage record, racking up 172 all-purpose yards in the game and 1,831 all-purpose yards on the season, breaking the previous record that Mike Frenette set in 2011. Smith said that he owes all the credit to the people who were blocking for him and that going out with the record is something very special.

Other records that were broken this week include Richard Nace breaking the all-time single-season sack record with 12 sacks on the season. Former Red Raider Jake Metz previously held the record. Sheldon Mayer also broke two records for best career punt return average at 14.3 yards per punt return for his career and 22.3 yards per punt return on the season, setting a single season punt return yard average record. Both punt return records were held by former Raider Brent Grimes, the Miami Dolphins Pro-Bowl cornerback.

Shippensburg head coach Mark Maciejewski gave credit to all of the seniors on the Red Raider football team.

“One heck of a game by our seniors,” Maciejewski said. “They all contributed big time today and that was kind of the plan going into it, to let them get into the game. We wanted to make sure they had a great memory.”

The skill-position offensive seniors all found the end zone, with Mayer, Quran Kent and Daniel Wheeler catching touchdown passes, while Andrew Smith and Shannon Maura found the end zone on the ground. The Red Raiders will graduate eight seniors this year: Mayer, Kent, Wheeler, Smith, Maura, Cortlin Dell, Kurtis Walker and T.J. Smink.

Even with eight seniors leaving, Shippensburg has put itself in great shape for future success. The Red Raiders improved on last season’s six wins, finishing this season with an 8-3 record. Shippensburg was the only university in the PSAC East to finish with eight wins. The Red Raider football program should be extremely strong in 2016.

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