MARYVILLE, Mo. — With Missouri Western and the MIAA season looming next week, Northwest Missouri State tuned up by teeing off on Southwest Baptist on Saturday night.

LaRon Council scored three touchdowns, and three quarterbacks combined for three more scores and 525 yards through the air in a 63-28 thrashing of Baptist.

“Obviously it’s a lot better to win than last week,” Northwest coach Mel Tjeerdsma said, referring to last Saturday’s season-opening loss to Abilene Christian. “Putting everything in perspective, I think there were some things that we did a lot better.”

But not everything.

Tjeerdsma said he was happy with his team’s play on offense early. The team moved the ball well on its first four drives, but then went into a lull.

“Sometimes your older players have a tendency, when you get a margin of 28-7 or whatever it was, they think it’s over and let up just a little bit,” Tjeerdsma said. “That hurts us a little. We got that corrected at halftime.”

Starting quarterback Joel Osborn threw for 183 yards and one touchdown — a 5-yarder to tight end Greg Applegate, his former high school teammate from Harlan, Iowa. His numbers were significantly down from last week’s game, partly because of Northwest’s rushing success and partly because the green Bearcats used three quarterbacks in the lopsided contest.

Osborn hit 17 of 25 passes, the longest gainer covering 27 yards. Blake Bolles went 5-for-7 with touchdowns covering 13 and 14 yards to Brian Shannon and Nick Rhodes, respectively. Freshman Blake Christopher came on late to hit his only pass attempt of the night, a 28-yarder.

“Our percentage — 23 out of 33 — I’ll take that any time,” Tjeerdsma said.

Those three quarterbacks spread the ball around to 12 different receivers, further pleasing their head coach.

“I thought they did a great job of finding the open receivers,” Tjeerdsma said. “We’ve got some guys that are a little more of our highlight guys, but that’s all right. When you’ve got an open receiver, you hit him.”

Northwest did the bulk of its damage on the ground, however.

Council gained 117 yards on 22 carries, scoring from 2, 5 and 2 yards out. Sheldon Cook added touchdown runs of 11 and 24 yards en route to an 81-yard night on 10 carries.

Cook displayed a little razzle-dazzle on his long touchdown run, cutting back to the right and sprinting to the corner of the end zone.

“It was supposed to hit play side, and it opened up back side,” Cook said. “The defense was flowing pretty hard. I ended up cutting it back and beating those guys to the pylon.”

As expected, Southwest Baptist quarterback Steve Gachette was impressive, throwing for 235 yards and three of the purple Bearcats’ four touchdowns. He found Thaddeus Sanders on a 35-yarder in the first quarter, Brian Robinson on a 2-yarder in the second and Johnnie King on a 17-yarder in the fourth quarter.

Baptist’s other touchdown came on a 1-yard run by Clint Carroz.

Northwest’s final touchdown came midway through the fourth quarter, when reserve running back Clint Moore was driving toward the goal line but fumbled on the 3. Backup center Ryan Lessman picked up the ball at the goal line for the score.