After winning its home opener last week, the Sacramento State football team got the wind knocked out of them early in a 31-24 loss against Weber State Saturday night at Hornet Stadium.

Sac State (1-2) watched as the Wildcats drove 75 yards down the field and scored on a three-yard trick-play pass from senior tight end Andrew Vollert to senior receiver Drew Batchelor to begin the game.

It didn’t get easier as Weber State sophomore defensive end Jonah Williams blocked Blake Cuzzupoli’s punt just a minute later and scooped the ball up for a touchdown. After failing to stop both two-point conversions, the Hornets faced a 16-0 deficit with 6:39 remaining in the first quarter.

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The Wildcats (2-1) — which entered the game ranked No. 21 in the Football Championship Subdivision coaches poll — didn’t slow down as they added another eight points to the scoreboard after senior quarterback Stefan Cantwell connected with Batchelor for a 12-yard touchdown.

“Weber State just came out ready to play,” said Sac State junior linebacker Malcolm Thomas. “It seemed like we weren’t triggering on d-line, linebackers, everyone wasn’t triggering like we normally do and they kind of just punched us in the mouth early.”

Meanwhile, the Sac State offense — which had more punts (four) than passing yards (zero) with a little over six minutes remaining in the second quarter — couldn’t muster up anything offensively. However, tides seemed to turn after Sac State presented its mascot Herky the Hornet with a birthday cake for his 70th anniversary.

Sac State junior quarterback Kevin Thomson, who finished 7-of-24 for 130 yards and one touchdown, threw a 42-yard strike to junior receiver Jaelin Ratliff for a touchdown. Five minutes later, Thomas intercepted a Cantwell pass for a 15-yard touchdown which brought the Hornets deficit to 24-14 with 5:55 left in the first half.

“We were showing blitz on the other side and then at the last second we switched,” Thomas said. “The quarterback was looking my way so I didn’t go all the way. I tried to bait him to throw it and then he threw it and I undercut the route.”

With momentum on their side, the Hornets kicked off the second half with a three-yard touchdown on a receiver reverse to junior Andre Lindsey to bring the score to 24-21 with 9:28 remaining in the third quarter.

“We were on our heels because we weren’t executing the way we should’ve been and the plays that they were getting were things where we were just blowing stuff,” said Jay Hill, the Wildcats fourth-year head coach. “We were leaving coverages, we were not guarding guys we were supposed to be guarding. I don’t know what the heck was going on. We had a couple brain farts that cost us big.”

After allowing 21 unanswered points to Sac State, the Wildcats couldn’t pick up ground on the Hornets defense for the entire third quarter. However, Weber State dialed up a 60-yard offensive drive that ended with a one-yard touchdown rush by Cantwell for a 31-21 lead with 11:10 left in the game.

True freshman Elijah Dotson then returned the kickoff 70 yards to set up junior kicker Devon Medeiros with a 36-yard field goal which brought the Weber State lead down to 31-24 with 10:17 remaining. However, these three points on the field goal turned out to be the last points that either team would see as both offenses traded punts and the Wildcats took a knee to end the game.

“We’ve got to make plays,” said Jody Sears, the Hornets head coach. “It’s hard to get into a rhythm when you’re a little inconsistent, execution is not quite there and everyone is not on the same page. You drop a ball here and you overthrow a ball here (and) that’s probably one of the best defenses in the conference.”

The Hornets offense finished with 220 yards of total offense, nine first downs and went 4-for-13 on third down. Weber State ended the game with 279 total yards, 21 first downs and a 50 percent (8-for-16) third down conversion rate.

Sac State will conclude its three game homestand and begin Big Sky Conference play against Southern Utah (2-1) — which defeated FCS No. 18 nationally ranked Northern Iowa 24-21 on Saturday — at 6 p.m. Sept. 23 at Hornet Stadium.