Two straight wins, another first for head coach Steve Mooshagian. After winning his first homecoming game and beating Big Sky rival Northern Arizona for the first time at home in school history, Mooshagian’s Hornets defeated Azusa Pacific 41-19 at Hornet Stadium.

“We’ve been taking those little obstacles out one at a time,” Mooshagian said. “We got this two in a row one out of there and now the next step is to win a Big Sky game on the road.

Mooshagian will get his chance on Saturday when the Hornets travel to Weber State, a team they defeated last year 31-12 at home.

“Weber State will pose a great challenge for us next weekend,” Mooshagian said.

Under Mooshagian the Hornets have yet to win a road game and will try to do so at a place where the team is 0-4 in school history.

Weber comes into the game at 2-3 (1-2 in Big Sky) and the Hornets enter it 2-4 (1-1). Both Mooshagian and starting quarterback Chris Hurd look forward to the challenge of winning a road game for the first time in three-plus seasons.

“To tell you the truth I don’t really look at it that way,” Hurd said of the Hornets’ recent struggles away from home. They are 7-7 in home games under Mooshagian, but 0-13 away.

“To me it’s just a different team with a different color jersey on. It doesn’t really make a difference if we are playing in Sacramento or Weber. I haven’t been here long enough to know that history and to me it doesn’t mean much at all,” Hurd said.

“We just need to have that mentality as a team that we will play well no matter where the game’s at.”

The Hornets will arrive in Weber with confidence coming from their victory over Azusa. Sac State beat the NAIA Cougars by dominating on offense, in the first half particularly. For the first time this season, the Hornets led at halftime, by a 27-12 margin. The 27 points, all scored in the second quarter, are the most points a Hornet team has scored in a quarter since the school moved to Division I-AA

Running back Ryan Mole was a big reason for the offensive outburst in the first half. The sophomore gained 189 of his season-high 204 yards in the half and added two touchdown runs.

“It was a lot of fun out there tonight,” Mole said. “The line has been blocking a lot better than earlier. It feels great to be able to get into the end zone a couple times tonight. It’s been awhile since I’ve done that.”

It was Mole’s second best game in his career at Sac State. He had 245 yards rushing and two scores in last year’s upset win over Montana State. It’s the only other game Mole has done each of those things, gone over 200 yards and scored two touchdowns.

“Once he broke in the secondary, you saw how special a back like Moley is with the cuts and moves that he makes,” quarterback Chris Hurd said. “With Mole, you know how good he is.”

The offensive line that Mole credited was not only responsible for the 257 total rushing yards, but for giving Hurd time to throw and that he did.

Hurd threw for three touchdowns and 198 yards and was sacked only once by the Azusa defense. He spread the ball around to seven different receivers and got receivers Torrell Baker and Matt Yaklich both their first career touchdown catches.

“Once we all come together and play as we are capable of playing I don’t think there’s a team this conference that can keep up with us,” Hurd said. “We just have to come out and execute and tonight we did.”

Despite the big margin of victory, midway through the second quarter the game was still up for grabs. With the Hornets down three in the quarter, Mooshagian elected to go for a fourth down play at the Azusa three-yard line. On the play, Hurd connected with tight end Tommy Briggs for the score, putting Sac State up 13-10. On the ensuing point after try, however, Juan Gamboa’s kick was blocked and returned for a two-point score for Azusa.

The Hornets would not allow another point until late in the fourth quarter, running off 21 unanswered points.

“We wanted to be aggressive and on that fourth down call, I felt we really needed to change the momentum of the game and with that score we did,” Mooshagian said. Briggs’ touchdown gave the Hornets their first lead of the game.

Mooshagian said his team got the wake-up call they were looking for after Azusa stole the momentum right back with the block kick and return, which turned a four point deficit to one point.

“Our defense said enough is enough and we got the ball right back after that score and we closed the half out great on offense.”

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Mitch McLaughlin can be reached at [email protected]