Morningside is headed to the NAIA Football Championship Series Semifinals for the fourth year in a row after the top ranked Mustangs crushed No. 8 Tabor 51-6 in Saturday’s quarterfinal round.

The Mustangs will host defending NAIA National Champion Southern Oregon next Saturday at noon, while Marian will travel to Saint Francis in the other semifinal.

Saturday’s lopsided triumph against the Bluejays was the ninth win in a row for Morningside, which improved its record to 12-1. Tabor, which had a 10-game winning streak end, closed the books on an 11-2 campaign.

Morningside entered the game as the highest scoring team in the nation with a scoring average in excess of 60 points per game and won the battle against a Tabor team that was second in the nation in scoring defense. The Mustangs’ 51 points was just shy of four times the average of 13.2 points per game the Bluejays had yielded in their previous 12 games. To Tabor’s credit, it held the Mustangs without a touchdown in the first quarter and the Mustangs’ 477 yards total offense was their third lowest output of the season.

Tabor was never able to mount a consistent offensive attack against the Morningside defense, which held the Bluejays to 236 yards total offense, including only 38 yards passing. Simon McKee, this year’s Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference (KCAC) Offensive Player of the Year, was ineffective when he took to the air, completing only six of 16 pass attempts. Two of his passes were intercepted by Morningside senior linebacker Ethan Stofferan, who was named the Game’s Outstanding Defensive Player.