Sioux Falls Survives Road Scare – NAIA‘s # 1 ranked USF Cougars were trailing the Northwestern (IA) Red Raiders (Motto: “We’re not the ones involved in the Mike Leach lawsuit.”) by a score of 21-10 deep in the 3rd quarter in last night’s game. I had even posted “Upset Watch” updates on my blog but the Cougars stayed cool and wound up winning 41-24. That final score is a bit misleading because it was 34-24 when a fumble by the Red Raiders was immediately recovered by Sioux Falls for another touchdown with barely a minute left in the game.
Fighting Saints Trump Battlin’ Bears – The Cougs weren’t the only highly ranked team facing a real struggle yesterday. The 3rd ranked Carroll (MT) Fighting Saints won a squeaker against the Battlin’ Bears of Rocky Mountain College 24-20. The proverbial grace under pressure prevailed, as perennial football power Carroll emerged with the win.
The Feel-Good Falcons – The Notre Dame College Falcons are in the school’s very first year of intercollegiate football but already have their 1st win. Yesterday in a historic matchup against the Lindsey Wilson College Blue Raiders, who were playing in their 1st intercollegiate football game since discontinuing football 75 years ago, the Falcons won a tight 14-10 victory. You could tongue-in-cheekly say that “experience” was the deciding factor since NDC had played a game last week (a loss to D2’s Mercyhurst Lakers) while LWC’s players were in their 1st game ever.
Azusa Pacific Rules The World! – Azusa Pacific, one of the roughly 612 NAIA schools whose teams are called the Cougars, humbled the Division 1AA San Diego Toreros 42-14. This duplicates a feat accomplished last year when the Sioux Falls Cougars defeated 1AA’s North Dakota Fighting Sioux. Congratulations to Azusa Pacific for winning against a team from 2 divisions higher and honorable mention to the Virginia-Wise Highland Cavaliers who gave the 1AA Campbell Camels almost more than they could handle but ultimately lost 20-16.
They Shoot Football Players, Don’t They? – Yesterday’s Marathon Game Award goes to the contest between NCAA Division 3’s Endicott Gulls and the Framingham State Rams, which wound up going to 3 Overtime Periods before the Gulls emerged with a 33-27 win.
No Shirt, No Nickname, No Problem! Division 3 McMurry, formerly the McMurry Indians but now a team without any nickname at all, oddly enough, won yesterday’s Indian Bowl against the NAIA’s Bacone Warriors 41-6. Personally I think nature abhors a sports team without a nickname so somebody needs to come up with one for McMurry. Something like, “The Big M” or “The McMurry Freds” for you My Three Sons fans. For fun they could call themselves “The Big Macs” and see how many nanoseconds it takes McDonald’s to bring a lawsuit against them!
“My Division Can Beat Up Your Division” Department – Since McMurry vs Bacone was an NCAA Division 3 team against an NAIA team that leads us to the year-in, year-out argument over which division plays better football. The NAIA got off to a 2-0 start with the Taylor Trojans and Black Hills State Yellowjackets beating D3’s Anderson Ravens and Wisconsin-Stout Blue Devils respectively. Here’s a roundup of yesterday’s NAIA vs D3 matchups – The NAIA’s additional winners were: Dickinson State Blue Hawks over the Concordia (MN) Cobbers 29-25; Belhaven Blazers over the Louisiana College Wildcats 41-34 and the Menlo Oaks over the Occidental Tigers 42-25. D3 teams notching wins over NAIA schools were: Wisconsin-Eau Claire Blugolds over the Bethel (TN) Wildcats 35-31; Coe Kohawks over the Iowa Wesleyan Tigers 48-21 and the Austin Roos over the Southwestern Assemblies of God Lions 28-6.
We Went To A Football Game And A Baseball Game Broke Out – The Concordia (NE) Bulldogs beat the Nebraska Wesleyan Prairie Wolves 3-0 and the McDaniel Green Terror defeated the Juniata Eagles by the same score. It’s always odd when 2 safeties would have beaten the winning team.
Other Thoughts: NAIA – In a game moved to Saturday following weather concerns Thursday night the 4th ranked Saint Xavier Cougars routed the Saint Francis (IL) Fighting Saints 52- 21…the # 10 Missouri Valley Vikings won a close game against the #24 Baker Wildcats 17-10. Baker is sure to drop out of the Top 25 completely following this 0-2 start…the Montana Tech Orediggers upset the 21st-ranked Eastern Oregon Mountaineers 37-21. Eastern is also off to an 0-2 start…the Jamestown College Jimmies won in overtime agains the Peru State Bobcats 56-54 when the Bobcats failed on a 2-point conversion attempt…the Concordia (AL) Hornets played D2’s West Georgia Wolves very tough in a 24-20 loss, as did the Southwestern Moundbuilders in a 32-27 loss to D2’s Panhandle State Aggies.
Other Thoughts: D3 – Defending Champs (And #1 ranked) the Wisconsin–Whitewater Warhawks won their opener by hammering the Adrian Bulldogs 35-0…the Wartburg Knights upset the # 17 Monmouth Fighting Scots in a 27-7 shocker…another, milder Top 25 upset occured when the 18th ranked Willamette Bearcats registered a road win over the 16th ranked Stevens Point Pointers 33-14…the #7 Central Dutch survived a scare against the unranked Oshkosh Titans 34-28 (Insert your own “Well don’t that beat the Dutch” joke here)…Some terrific under-the-radar games were played in D3 yesterday. SPOILER ALERT – Stop reading if you plan to listen to archived audio webcasts of these games at the schools’ websites…the Merchant Marine Academy Mariners in a last-minute win over the Gallaudet Bison 35-34; the Mississippi College Choctaws over the Millsaps Majors 27-23; the Emory and Henry Wasps over the Ferrum Panthers in overtime 23-17; the Oberlin Yeomen over the Kenyon Lords 29-26; the Rowan Profs over the Lycoming Warriors 24-17 and the Muskingum Muskies over the Defiance Yellowjackets 19-13 in 2 Overtime Periods.
The Lindenwood Lions men’s soccer team upset the Top-ranked Lindsey-Wilson Blue Raiders by a score of 2-1. The Lions led 1-nil at half-time off a goal by Hannes Backstrom. Two minutes in to the 2nd half Blue Raiders player Carnell Learmond tied the game up but in the 74th minute Simon Harrsen scored the game-winner for Lindenwood. 
The 8th-ranked Johns Hopkins Blue Jays women’s soccer team went into Wednesday night’s game against the top-ranked Messiah Falcons undefeated at 2-0, but unfortunately came out with a 2-1 loss. Messiah (Insert your own “Where’s your Messiah now?” joke here) scored their 1st goal agains the Blue Jays in the 38th minute when Lisa Wingard one-timed a goal past JHU‘s goaltender Kristen Redsun. That was the first goal the Blue Jays gave up this season after 3-nil and 5-nil victories in their 1st 2 games of the year. Just 80 seconds into the 2nd half the Falcons made it a 2-nil game off a goal by Amanda Naeher.Just over 2 minutes later Sara Tankard cut the Falcons’ lead in half but it wasn’t quite enough. 
In a week in which Saint Xavier Cougars goalie “Wild” Kyle Held was named Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference Defensive Player Of The Week it seems appropriate that he should register his 2nd shutout of this young season. The Cougars won 2-nil against the Goshen Maple Leafs (You’re dying for a “Land’O’Goshen” joke but I’m not playing that game). Both goalies had rejected all shots on goal until the 80th minute when SXU’s Al Palar provided the 1st goal of the game. “Mighty” Matt Klancic provided an insurance goal 4 minutes later to improve the Cougars to 3-2 on the season.
Reece Harris, freshman goalie for the Park University Pirates men’s soccer team, notched his 2nd career win Wednesday night against the Lindenwood Lions by a score of 2-1. Harris blocked 7 shots and both Pirate goals were scored by striker Ramone Palmer, 1 of them off a pass from midfielder Simon Senfuka. For Park Pirates video highlights visit their Youtube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/parkathletics .
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