AZUSA, Calif. – Shane Minton could not have made a bigger splash if he weighed 300 pounds.

The 5-foot-10 junior safety doubled as a tailback for the first time in his collegiate career and responded with 106 yards on just 8 carries while scoring 3 TDs to lift the NAIA's No. 20-ranked Azusa Pacific to a 56-30 victory over Redlands.

With the Cougars trailing 14-7 late in the first quarter, Minton made his first-ever appearance in the Cougar backfield and went off right-guard 14 yards for his first rushing yards. On the next play he sprinted 24 yards up the middle for his first collegiate TD to knot the score at 14-14. By the time he carried the ball for a fifth time, he had his third TD of the evening, an 18-yard sprint around right end to give the Cougars a 35-28 lead that they would not relinquish.

"The line happened to open up some great holes and all I had to do was make the reads," said Minton, who became the first Cougar this year to rush for a 100 yards in a game. "They did the hard work, all I had to do was follow. I went with my instinct."

And Minton isn't about to give up his "day" job either. He tallied 9 tackles on the evening, including 1 for a loss, and set up his second rushing TD of the night with an interception of a Jeff Thomas pass at the Bulldog 31-yard line. Three plays after the pick, Minton bounced up the middle 20 yards for another TD that sent the teams into halftime tied at 21-21.
"We wanted to get Shane into the La Verne game, but it was back and forth and Jesse (Aust) was running well," said Cougar head coach Peter Shinnick. "Western Oregon came up and stacked us and crushed us so there wasn't a real opportunity to get him in last week. So we said we'd put him in somewhere in the first couple of series against Redlands, and sure enough, he did well. And he is playing so well on defense too, probably as well as anyone we have."

Minton led an ever opportunistic set of Cougars who turned 5 of Redlands' 6 turnovers into TDs. The Cougars opened the second half by recovering a Bulldog fumbled punt return at the Cougar 47-yard line. Two plays later, sophomore QB Luke Winslow connected with Caleb Willis for a 53-yard TD bomb over the middle that put the Cougars up 28-21.
After Minton's final TD gave Azusa Pacific a 35-28 late in the third quarter, senior LB Miguel Ramos picked off a Thomas pass on the subsequent drive and returned it 42 yards to paydirt for an insurmountable 42-28 Cougar lead with 9:42 left in the game.

Three minutes later, the Cougars turned a Brandon Ford fumble into a Winslow to Kevin Carlsen 7-yard TD catch. The Cougars' final TD, an advanced fumble recovered by freshman QB George Valos, was set up when Redlands fumbled a free kick.

The Cougar ground game, which had produced just 175 yard through the first 4 games, chewed up 194 yards of turf against Redlands. Aust finished with 64 yards on 18 carries and scored the game's first TD on a 1-yard plunge on the opening drive.