RIPON, Wis. - The old saying goes that winning is contagious. In the case of the 2006 Ripon football team, that holds true, as they won their fifth consecutive game Saturday afternoon, easily disposing of Beloit College, 41-7. The win moves the Red Hawks to 5-0 in the Midwest Conference and a tie atop the MWCÂ standings.

Ripon's offense was clicking on all cylinders from the get go. Scott Perkins singlehandedly put the Red Hawks up 13-0 with two first quarter TD runs. Then in the second quarter, the offense exploded, using the passing game, which is a rarity on the run-first team. On the first play of the second quarter, Bob Faulds hooked up with receiver Ted Bartels for a 54-yard touchdown. That was followed on Ripon's next drive with a 21-yard strike through the air, this time courtesy of a Faulds-to-Brian Felix connection. John McGuire capped the first half scoring on an 8-yard run and before they knew it, Ripon was in the locker room with a 34-0 halftime lead.

"The offense had a great day today. The kids are really gelling right now and the coaching staff is doing a great job of adjusting to what teams are trying to do," Head Coach Ron Ernst said. "Our kids are doing an outstanding job of taking what the coaches teach them and performing on the field."

The Red Hawks got an insurance touchdown from Faulds midway through the third quarter, giving Ripon a 41-0 advantage. As good as they looked in the first half, it was the second half that the coaches were thrilled about.

"Our big thing today was that if we could get a good first half, that would be great, but the key would be playing well in the second half, which we haven't done consistently this year. We did that well today and played 60 pretty good minutes of football," said Ernst.

While Ripon excelled on both sides of the ball, the Buccaneers struggled to get much of anything going. Beloit finished the game with 145 yards, including just 17 through the air. Those 17 passing yards allowed are tied for the third fewest in Ripon College history.

"When you've got an offense that hammers the ball on the ground like we do, that can be a demoralizing thing for the other team," said Ernst. "They may have paniced a little bit and started to throw the ball when they didn't have to."

From here, the games will only get tougher for the Red Hawks, as their next two will be against two of the best teams in the conference, Monmouth and St. Norbert. The Green Knights defeated Monmouth Saturday, which means the Red Hawks are in a tie for first place with St. Norbert, who they will play at home in two weeks. Before they tend to them however, Ripon will travel to Monmouth next week for a pivitol game in their season.

"We're going to go down there and give it our best shot. We don't worry about what other teams are doing. We just want to go out and play our game and do what we do best," said Ernst.

Next week's game can be heard live on WRPN-AM, as well as streamed live on their website, www.wrpnam.com.