Hornet Stadium held a crowd of 10,934, the largest of the year, Saturday for the Homecoming game against the Cal Poly Mustangs.

The Mustangs (4-3, 1-3 Big Sky) secured the win with speed and big plays at their advantage, while the Hornets ( 4-4, 1-3 Big Sky) were handed a loss with a final score of 56-27.

“That is a hard offense to defend,” said Sacramento State coach Jody Sears. “You’ve got to be right on and if you are 6 inches off, you give up a 15-yard play. If you are a yard off, you give up a touchdown.”

Sac State opened strong and the game was highly competitive with three lead changes taking place and 41 points scored in the first half alone.

After Brad Cornish’s opening field goal from 32 yards out, the Mustangs scored with 1:02 remaining in the first quarter to lead 7-3, but the Hornets quickly turned the table and recaptured the lead with two touchdowns late in the second quarter.

The Mustang’s Kenny Mitchell caught a 3-yard pass from Chris Brown, with 47 seconds remaining in the first half, allowing Cal Poly to regain the lead, 21-20.

The Hornets were unable to recover for the remainder of the game as Cal Poly scored 35 unanswered points in the third, leading 42-20, going into the final quarter of game.

“You have to defend the whole width of the field, and probably the thing that hurts us most was their speed, and our fits on defense on two or three of the plays,” Sears said. “We just have to be more consistent.”

A 5-yard pass from quarterback Garrett Safron to wide receiver DeAndre Carter was the final touchdown for the Hornets late in the fourth, inching the score 27-49, yet the Mustangs scored once more with 1:40 remaining as junior quarterback Dano Graves sealed the deal when rushing for a 4-yard touchdown.

“As a team we didn’t come down, we didn’t execute to our standards,” Carter said. “We have to watch the film, learn from it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Cal Poly’s starting quarterback Brown finished 8-of-11 passes for 109 yards and a pair of touchdowns. In the second quarter freshman fullback Joe Protheroe broke off a 62-yard run against the Hornet’s defense as the Mustangs amassed 504 yards of total offense. Running back Kori Garcia established a dominant running game, finishing with 141 rushing yards.

Despite Sac State losing the game, Safron became the all-time leading passer with 8,448 career passing yards. The senior completed 30-of-43 passes and threw for 306 yards. He finished with two touchdowns and a blemish of two interceptions.

Carter also entered the record books with 29 career touchdowns, but said it was hard to celebrate when the team lost and fellow teammate linebacker Darnell Sankey, who suffered a leg injury in the third quarter. Before leaving the game he did contribute 10 tackles.

“Darnell is a major part of our team and a major part of our defense, but we have a next man up mentality, so when Darnell went down Tyler Meeter came in and played a pretty good game,” Carter said.

Both Sears and Carter said that the details of Sankey’s injuries were unknown, but he was seen walking into the locker room with the aid of crutches.

“Our kids are tough,” Sears said. “They play really hard, they love each other and they are loyal to each other. They are extremely selfless and they play with great heart.”

Sac State has its bye week this weekend, but the team hits the road Nov. 1 to continue conference play against Montana.