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Fast start

WHITEWATER — A festive opening-night crowd, a halftime ceremony honoring the 2007 NCAA Division III national champions, and the new state-of-the-art synthetic turf are three obvious reminders of UW-Whitewater’s tremendous pro-gress in football.

The 2008 Warhawks, however, are a little more of a work-in-progress.

After jumping out to a 17-0 first half lead, second ranked UW-Whitewater sputtered the rest of the way before finally fighting off NAIA power St. Xavier (Ill.), 24-9, in front of 7,186 fans at Perkins Stadium.

Jeff Donovan made the most of first career start by throwing touchdown passes of one and six yards to Nick Slupski and Jordan Wells, respectively, while cornerback Jeremy Diebert chipped in a 20-yard touchdown interception return to lead the Warhawks to their 26th straight home victory.

But Whitewater’s victory was certainly tainted by St. Xavier’s eye-opening 340 to 219 advantage in total yardage.

“Facts are facts, we are young football team, and young football teams are going to have those ups and downs.” Warhawk coach Lance Leipold said. “There is no doubt that we have plenty to work on. We know that it’s a work in progress.”

Donovan certainly showed his progression early in the game capping a 12-play, 60-yard opening drive with a 1-yard touchdown pass to Slupski for a 7-0 lead.

Warhawk cornerback Jeremy Diebert followed the offense’s lead with a 20-yard interception return late in the first to put Whitewater up 14-0. On the ensuing Cougar possession, Troney Shumpert nabbed another Anthony Kropp pass and scampered 18 yards to the Cougar 16 setting up a Jeff Schebler 26-yard field goal.

“I couldn’t be more pleased about the way we came out of the gate on both sides of the football,” Leipold said.

Leipold’s satisfaction didn’t last too long after watching the Cougars turn up the heat on the Warhawks. A.J. Nichols’ 23-yard field goal cut the Whitewater lead to 17-3 with three minutes left in the first half. St. Xavier then road its momentum into the third quarter cutting the deficit to 17-9 on Kropp’s 39-yard touchdown pass to Bill McKeon with 1:05 left in the third.

“As an offense, we got a little stagnant,” said Donovan, who completed 15 of 26 passes for 157 yards. “That first drive of the game was so exciting and momentum carried us, but they (St. Xavier) made some good plays.”

Donovan finally jump-started the offense with a 6-yard touchdown pass to Wells with 4:06 left in the fourth to put the game out of reach, 24-9.

“I like where we are at as a team,” Leipold said. “I think a lot of the fans didn’t understand how good this team (St. Xavier) was.”