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Warhawks reign again as national champions

Photo

Photo by (AP Photo/Don Petersen)

Wisconsin-Whitewater's Adam Brandes, left, celebrates with his head coach Lance Leipold, center, and Jeff Donovan, right, after the Stagg Bowl NCAA college football game at Salem Stadium in Salem, Va., Saturday, Dec. 19, 2009. Wisconson-Whitewater defeated Mount Union 38-28 to win the NCAA Division III Football Championship.

Photo

Photo by (AP Photo/Don Petersen)

UW-Whitewater's Aaron Rusch scores a touchdown in the first half of the Stagg Bowl NCAA Division III college football game against Mount Union at Salem Stadium in Salem, Va., Saturday, Dec. 19, 2009.

SALEM, VA. — Thanks to a huge snowstorm, everybody was late in getting going here Saturday.

But that changed quickly when the storm-delayed football game finally started.

Senior quarterback Jeff Donovan got UW-Whitewater going right away in the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl.

Levell Coppage then finished it off, and the Warhawks celebrated their second NCAA Division III national championship in three years and a 15-0 season with a 38-28 win over five-time title game opponent Mount Union (Ohio), which finished 14-1.

“We knew it would be a four-quarter football game,” Whitewater coach Lance Leipold said. “Once again our backs were against the wall, but we had the opportunity to make some plays, and we created some turnovers. We stepped up when we needed.”

For the second straight week, the Warhawks were dealing with an opponent that had grabbed the momentum. And again, things turned around as the clocked ticked down.

Last week, in Whitewater’s 27-17 win over Linfield (Ore.), the Warhawks came from behind with 17 fourth-quarter points.

And although the Warhawks never trailed this time, Mount Union, which had trailed by two touchdowns at the half, got even with Whitewater by early in the fourth quarter. The Purple Raiders then had possession of the ball on three occasions where points would have given them the lead.

But two of those drives ended in lost fumbles. And on the third, Mount Union was forced to punt, which gave Whitewater the ball on its 42-yard line.

Five plays later, the Warhawks were up for good at 35-28, when Coppage ran 31 yards untouched down the left sideline for the game-winning score with 1:17 to play.

Coppage said all he was thinking as he ran the ball was “victory,” although he knew that the Warhawks couldn’t feel like the game was over.

“I knew that it wasn’t over,” the game’s MVP said. “Our defense had to go out there and shut them down. And that’s exactly what they did.”

Whitewater’s defense forced a third turnover when Purple Radiers quarterback Kurt Rocco was stripped of the ball on a fourth-down play. That led to an exclamation point to Whitewater’s triumph—a 44-yard field goal by Jeff Schebler with 26 seconds to play, making it a 10-point margin.

Then it was time celebrate a victory that came more than eight hours after the game was originally scheduled to begin. The 10 a.m (CST) kickoff was moved back to 3 p.m. due to a winter storm that blanked the Mid-Atlantic region of the country late Friday and early Saturday.

More that 18 inches of snow fell in less than 24 hours in the Salem area, making it impossible to keep the artificial surface at Salem Stadium clear. To make matters worse, roads conditions were horrible, and neither team was able to leave its hotel until late morning.

As far as the Warhawks were concerned, the only negative to the situation was that ESPN moved the telecast of the game from ESPN2 to ESPN Classic, which does not reach as many televisions across the country. But there were plenty of positives.

“Everything happens for a reason,” said Donovan, who finished with 323 passing yards. “We were so excited to play under the lights and everything. ...

“I had prepared myself for the worst, but then we got out here and conditions were perfect.”

The Warhawks also were close to perfect in the first half.

After being forced to punt on its first possession, Whitewater scored touchdowns on four consecutive possessions. Two came on 1-yard runs by Coppage, the others the result of Donovan passes.

But Donovan was the star of all four drives.

In last year’s Stagg Bowl, Donovan threw for 257 yards. In the first half alone this time, he completed 17 of 22 passes for 224 yards—which was more than three-fourths of the Warhawks’ total offense in the first half.

After Coppage scored Whitewater’s first TD, Donovan found Cory Robinson wide open in the right corner of the end zone for his team’s second touchdown, which made it 14-0.

“The first half, Donovan was right on the money,” Mount Union coach Larry Kehres said. “We couldn’t get to him, and we couldn’t make a play on the balls before the balls were caught.”

But after it was 14-0, the teams traded TDs for the rest of the first half.

Mount Union star receiver Cecil Shorts III, who helped the Purple Raiders take a 14-0 lead in last year’s Stagg Bowl with a pair of TD receptions, cut Whitewater’s lead in half with a 19-yard reception from quarterback Kurt Rocco. In last week’s win over Wesley, Shorts was moved to quarterback in the second half in relief of Rocco, who was knocked out of the game in a helmet-to-helmet hit.

Then it was Whitewater’s turn again. Coppage capped a 65-yard drive with his second 1-yard plunge, making it 21-7 with 7:27 left in the second quarter.

Again, Mount Union answered with a 2-yard pass from Rocco to Wes Ryder, pulling the Raiders within 21-14 with 4:43 left in the half.

But Donovan stayed with Whitewater’s game plan, engineering another long drive that was capped with a 10-yard TD pass to Aaron Rusch.

By halftime, with Whitewater up 28-14, the Warhawks already had scored more points than any of Mount Union’s previous 14 opponents did in an entire game.

There was not much variety in the Warhawks’ four scoring drives in the half. The drives averaged 73 yards and 10 plays, and all four started inside the Whitewater 36-yard line.

But to no one’s surprise, a two-TD lead did not mean it was game over. Although Mount Union didn’t have a lot of deficits to deal with in winning 66 of its last 67 games, the Purple Raiders were ready to rally.

After Whitewater was forced to punt on its first possession of the second half, Mount Union went 77 yards in just five plays. The Raiders got back to within a touchdown when Rocco hit Shorts for a 23-yard score with 9:59 left in the third quarter.

The Purple Raiders’ defense also improved. They held Whitewater to 78 yards and no points in the third quarter, then came up with the first turnover of the game on the second play of the fourth quarter when safety Alex Ferara picked off a Donovan pass at the Whitewater 31. Five plays later, Rocco scored on a 5-yard run, and the score was tied at 28-28—setting up the dramatic finish.

WHITEWATER 38,

MOUNT UNION 28

TEAM STATISTICS

MU Whi

First downs 22 23

Rushes-yards 32-86 36-141

Yards passing 382 329

Passes 23-39-0 27-41-1

Punts-avg. 4-38.5 5-32.2

Fumbles-lost 3-3 1-0

Penalties-yards 1-5 4-30

Time of poss. 26:09 33:51

SCORING SUMMARY

Mount Union 0 14 7 7—28

UW-Whitewater 7 21 0 10—35

First Quarter

W—Levell Coppage, 1 run (Jeff Schebler kick), 8:38.

Second Quarter

W—Cory Robinson, 1 pass from Jeff Donovan (Schebler kick), 13:32. MU—Cecil Shorts, 19 pass from Kurt Rocco (Herman Timmersjo kick), 11:30. W—Coppage, 1 run (Schebler kick), 7:27. MU—Wes Ryder II, 2 pass from Rocco (Timmersjo kick), 4:33. W—Aaron Rusch, 10 pass from Donovan (Schebler kick), :52.

Third Quarter

MU—Shorts, 23 pass from Rocco (Timmersjo kick), 9:59.

Fourth Quarter

MU—Rocco, 5 run (Timmersjo kick), 12:08. W—Coppage, 31 run (Schebler kick), 1:17. W—FG, Schebler, 44, :25.

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING—Mount Union: Terrance Morring 20-89, Cecil Shorts 1/-1, Kurt Rocco 11/-2. Whitewater: Levell Coppage 22-111, Antwan Anderson 9-28, Jeff Donovan 4-3.

PASSING—Mount Union: Kurt Rocco 23-39-0-382. Whitewater: Jeff Donovan 27-41-1-329.

RECEIVING—Mount Union: Cecil Shorts 10-184, Kyle Miller 2-62, Vince Petruziello 3-60, Wes Ryder II 4-32, A.J. Claycomb 2-22, Judd Harrold 1-15, Terrance Morring 1-7. Whitewater: Aaron Rusch 8-109, Adam Brandes 5-59, Jordan Wells 3-40, Cory Robinson 4-34, Levell Coppage 2-33, David Leaf 2-26, John Novak 2-20, Antwan Anderson 1-8.