|
Deep down, the Indians knew that every game this season wouldn’t be a cakewalk.
After three weeks of outscoring opponents by an average of 45-4, Catawba College’s football team hung on against a tough Presbyterian squad Saturday for a 27-14 victory.
Catawba, ranked sixth in the nation in Division II, improved to 4-0 overall and 2-0 in the SouthAtlantic Conference. Only slightly less important than maintaining those perfect records was the reality check the Blue Hose administered.
“We had to get together and focus,”said Indians running back Joe Hilliard, who rushed for 83 yards and one touchdown. “The coaches think it might have been good for us, that we were getting over-confident. If you’re going to be a championship team, you’ve got to keep that focus.”
Presbyterian’s players focused squarely on one thing: an upset. The offense held the ball just 20 minutes the entire game, yet quarterback Todd Cunningham had the Blue Hose (2-2, 1-1) within 13-6 early in the fourth quarter after his 54-yard scoring strike to Di Young.
That one play made up for 45 minutes of ferocious Catawba defense. Cunningham, the conference’s top passer, drew a flag for intentional grounding in the end zone minutes into the game to put Catawba up 2-0. On Presbyterian’s next possession, Cunningham pump-faked a pass — and watched the ball slips out of his hands, float straight up into the air and drop into the waiting arms of Indian linebacker Todd McComb.
That led to a Catawba touchdown on Mitch Ellis’ 20-yard pass to Mark Sintich. Alittle trickery on the conversion attempt, which had holder Danny Jenkins pop up with the long snap and throw a pass to a wide-open Sintich in the end zone, made it 10-0.
Presbyterian answered immediately with a 32-yard strike from Cunningham to Young, but a holding call brought it pack and led to a punt, which Matt Gross answered with a 39-yard field goal.
“We played well other than the mistakes that put our defense in a bad position,” Cunningham said. “We just can’t make mistakes against the No. 6 team in the nation. They’ll come back to haunt you.”
Mistakes hurt Catawba, too. A 10-play, 74-yard drive in the first quarter ended at the 1 when freshman running back Rickey Haywood fumbled. Ellis fumbled with 19 seconds to play in the first half, setting up a 23-yard field-goal attempt, but Radell Lockhart blocked the kick to maintain a 13-0 lead.
“We felt like we were in the game all along. We hadn’t done a thing on offense and we still had an opportunity at halftime,”Blue Hose head coach Daryl Dickey said. “We should’ve and could’ve performed a lot better.”
So could Catawba, but a muddy field helped rein in the usually high-powered Indian offense.
“It was kind of a mucky field and we started out kind of mucky, too,”Catawba head coach David Bennett said. “We knew it was going to be a great test. People forget this about Presbyterian — last year they had Carson-Newman by 10 points with eight minutes to go in the ballgame and Carson-Newman came back to beat them.”
Defense ruled in the third quarter and on the second play of the fourth. Ellis dropped back and looked for favorite target Ryan Millwood, but Roderick Gambrall stepped in front for the interception. One 54-yard bomb later, it was 13-6 and Catawba’s 3,172 fans were sweating from more than just the sudden sunshine that appeared over Shuford Stadium.
That pass provided a wake-up call to the offense, which finally emerged from its game-long funk. Senior running back Kevin McKenzie, who didn’t start Saturday after spraining his ankle a week ago, reeled off a 43-yard run up the middle that set up Ellis’ QB sneak to make it 20-6.
The defense forced a four-and-out from midfield and Hilliard and McKenize ran three times for 43 yards and a 27-6 advantage.
“At the very end of the game, our offense and defense did a role reversal,” Bennett said. “It was great to see our offense take the football and move it down the field to get two touchdowns.The offense did an outstanding job at the end of the game when they were sluggish at the beginning, and the defense was sluggish at the end after dong a great job at the beginning.
“To me that’s the true sense of a team, when you help each other out, and that’s what they did today.”
n
NOTES: Dickey pointed out that his tired defense, which played 40 minutes, had a lot to do with Catawba zooming down the field late in the game. “The defense had been on the field an awful lot. It was a long day for them,”he said. “We ran out of gas there at the end.” … Cunningham scored from 11 yards out and added a conversion run for the last of Presbyterian’s 14 points. … Catawba travels to Newberry next Saturday.
|
Today's News