HUTCHINSON, KS – The Jayhawk Conference champion Hutchinson Community College Blue Dragons will meet Hudson Valley Community College in the sixth edition of the Salt City Bowl.
Junior College bowl announcements were announced on Tuesday. The fourth-ranked Blue Dragons (10-1) will take on the No. 19 Vikings (8-1) at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 6 at Gowans Stadium.
Ticket information for the game and the Dec. 5 bowl banquet will be announced soon.
This will be the first time that Hutchinson and Hudson Valley have met in football. The only other time that Hutchinson and Hudson Valley have crossed paths in any sport came in 1970 in men’s basketball.
Hudson Valley Community College is an NJCAA football independent program located in Troy, New York. The Vikings had the best record this season among junior college football independents at 8-1.
Hutchinson claimed its first Jayhawk Conference football championship since 1995 this season, tying a program record for wins in a season with 10. The only loss HCC suffered came to an Iowa Western team that will play for the national championship this season against East Mississippi.
Hutchinson will be making its sixth-straight and 19th-overall bowl appearance. The Blue Dragons are currently on a program-best six-game bowl winning streak. The win streak started with Hutch defeating Tyler 15-10 in the 2004 Heart of Texas Bowl. HCC has since defeated New Mexico Military Institute (22-14), Eastern Arizona College (42-21); Lackawanna College (70-20), Iowa Central (41-21) and Dakota College-Bottineau (57-0) in the Salt City Bowl.
Hutchinson has an all-time bowl record of 10-6-2.
Hudson Valley will be making only its third bowl appearance in program history and first in 11 seasons. The Vikings are 0-2 in bowl games. Hudson Valley lost 17-14 to Iowa Central in the 1989 Coca-Cola Bowl in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Hudson Valley lost to Ellsworth 29-23 in the Graphic Edge Bowl in 2003.
The Blue Dragons will bring the No. 6 rushing attack in the nation into the game. HCC, with a deep stable of running backs, rushes for 268.0 yards per game. The Dragons score 42.1 points per game and allow 21.4. Defensively, HCC allows 106.5 rushing yards and 216.1 passing yards.
Hudson Valley averages 24.4 points and 341.6 yards per game offensively, getting 179.0 yards on the round and 162.6 yards through the air. Defensively, the Vikings are allowing 15.9 points per game and allow 242.9 yards, 74.2 on the ground and 168.7 in the air.
The Vikings started the season with eight consecutive wins before dropping a 27-0 decision to Navy Prep on Nov. 1.