TACOMA, Wash. – The Pacific Lutheran University football team heads to Salem, Oregon for its season finale matchup against Northwest Conference rival Willamette University. 

Last weekend, the Lutes (1-7, 0-6 NWC) had their most explosive offensive performance of the year thus far, scoring three touchdowns in the third quarter and cutting the score down to three. The Lutes unfortunately couldn't capitalize in the fourth quarter, falling short 44-31 to Pacific University. 
 
Two junior receivers, Alex Rendon and Wesley Nixon held it down for the offense. Both tallying seven catches a piece, along with a pair of touchdowns. The talented wide receiver core additionally had 124 yards and two touchdowns from sophomore Jace Keim as the Lutes finished the afternoon with 411 yards through the air.  

The junior from Mount Si, Washington, Alex Rendon, had 118 yards receiving with a touchdown late in the third quarter.

"We ended up having a pretty good game as a receiving core. We played up to our potential this game and we hope to repeat that for Willamette" said Rendon "We all just hit on all cylinders, with Bryce Missey throwing and getting some of our O-line back so we can repeat that."

The junior from Fife, Washington, Wesley Nixon, had 143 yards receiving with a touchdown half-way through the third quarter. His performance earned him offensive player of the week for the Lutes.

"It was a great game for the receivers. Figuratively speaking, we put the team on our back with three receivers over a hundred" said Nixon "It was something that we haven't been able to do yet and I am glad we could prove our potential out there on Saturday."

Although the Lutes had a great performance, they weren't able to capitalize and go out with the win. 

"We are just really banged up on both sides of the ball, so it was hard. We have the "next man up" mentality, but at a certain point, we ran out of gas and ran out of bodies which showed later in the game" said Rendon "But as we get more guys, I think we will be able to recover from that and just have guys be able to step into roles that their maybe not used to."

The junior film and media major, Wesley Nixon, is made for the moment. He hopes to one day get into the entertainment business and get on the T.V. screen, but for now he wants to entertain the fans for the Lutes and capture their first conference win.

"For the receivers, we are going to continue to try and do the same thing we did against Pacific. Just try and get the ball into playmakers hands and do what we do best. I think we got a great plan for the upcoming game against Willamette. We got some good things drawn up for all of our offensive sets."

The season hasn't quite gone as hoped, but Alex Rendon is returning for his final season with the Lutes next year and remains positive about the future.

"Pretty much 90 percent of our guys are coming back. I have really high expectations for next year and hopefully we can stay healthy. We have a good-looking offensive line, our entire receiving core is coming back, quarterbacks are coming back, and a lot of guys defensively will be getting more experience. We will be really deep and ready to make a NWC title run next year."

As the season is wrapping up, Wesley Nixon will also be stepping into a senior leader role and his expectations are high for everyone.

"We will have to have all of our team bought it and getting into the weight room, going to all of our team challenges, running routes with our quarterbacks, and defense working on their craft. Our senior class has pretty high expectation and we want to go really far, so I think we have a pretty good chance of doing it next year if we just keep working hard."

The junior business major, Alex Rendon, hopes to close out the season on a good note for this senior class' last game.

"I think for the last game of the season, we have to remember it is the seniors last game, so we got to play for them and put it all together one last time for them. So that will be the expectation going down there."

Nov. 16: PLU vs. Willamette in Salem, Oregon (1 p.m.)

Series History: The Lutes and Bearcats have met 49 times since the series began in 1966 with Pacific Lutheran enjoying the upper hand with a 30-17-2 series advantage. The Lutes have won the last three encounters, including a 33-20 victory last season at Sparks Stadium. 

About the Bearcats: Willamette (1-7, 0-6 NWC) had a promising start to the season, picking up a 34-31 win over Occidental College and a 56-6 exhibition win over Lewis-Clark Valley but have struggled since conference play began, yielding 49 or more points in each of its six NWC setbacks. 

Last Saturday, Max Anderson set a school record with 16 receptions but it wasn't enough as the Bearcats fell short, 56-14, against the University of Puget Sound.

Quarterback Mathew Castaneda has thrown for 1,529 yards and 17 touchdowns while rushing for an additional 261 yards. His most frequent target has been the aforementioned Anderson with 41 receptions for 681 yards and eight scores. 
 
Defensively, Alec Stevenson leads the team with 80 tackles while Keaton Adams has 10.5 TFLs and 4.5 sacks.