RESULTS OF DECEMBER 11TH’S FOOTBALL GAMES – D3 AND D2 SEMIFINALS

Well, it is now official – make it SIX years in a row that the Whitewater Warhawks and the Mount Union Purple Raiders will play each other for the D3 football National Championship. The Warhawks upheld their end of the bargain today by trashing the Wesley Wolverines on their own field by a final score of 27-7. All of this is made more impressive when you consider that for the 4th week in a row Whitewater was without their starting QB Matt Blanchard. Naysayers who relegated the top-ranked Warhawks to a 2 seed in their region instead of a 1 seed were proven wrong again as were the critics who felt Whitewater would falter outside the familiar confines of their home stadium. Road wins in back to back weeks have sent the Warhawks back to the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl once again. And add five more interceptions for a Whitewater D that  has only allowed 17 total points in the last two games.   

It will be wall-to-wall purple once again in Salem, VA for the D3 football National Championship game AKA the Stagg Bowl. The football equivalents of the Yankees and the Red Sox, the Mount Union Purple Raiders and the Whitewater Warhawks will be squaring off against each other for the D3 title yet again. The Purple Raiders were hosting the Bethel (MN) Royals and pounded them by a final score of 34-14. Mt Union QB Neal Seaman left the game in the 1st quarter with an apparent leg injury but the Purple Raiders didn’t miss a beat with Matt Piloto taking the reins. “The Mattmeister General” went 17 of 32 for 335 yards and 4 touchdowns. The Mt Union defense was just as impressive, with the Royals’ second touchdown not  coming until garbage time. 

Moving now to the NCAA Division 2 semifinals, the Delta State Statesmen (By the way, I’ve always loved that logo – the Greek letter Delta and the word “state”. Get it?) had their hands full with the visiting Shepherd Rams. The score was 23-17 late in the 4th quarter with a missed extra point earlier in the game looming large until a Statesmen interception  set up a touchdown that put the game out of reach. The field was a rainy, muddy mess (and in fact there was a long lightning delay in the 3rd quarter that made the finale much later than it should have been) and Delta State missed another PAT after that touchdown, leaving the score 29-17. Down 2 scores, the Rams were driving when another Statesmen pick with just over a minute left in the game let DSU run out the clock. The new rule in D2 football is that if the year ends in a zero you can pencil Delta State into the National Championship game, since they were last there in the year 2000, when they won it all.   

The Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs, who have been called this year’s “team of destiny” in some circles since their overtime win against St Cloud State in the 2nd round, were giant-killers today by ending the Northwest Missouri Bearcats’ streak of title game appearances at five. The Bulldogs trailed 13-10 in the 4th quarter but came back to win 17-13. “General Winter”, as the Russians call it, helped UMD handle the defending champion Bearcats with strong winds and single-digit temperatures, as surely as it helped Russia withstand invasions by Hitler, Napoleon and Gustavus Adolphus. (I’ll mention again how much I love pompous and thoroughly inappropriate sports analogies!) Next Saturday the Delta State Statesmen and the UMD Bulldogs will play in the first Tjeerdsma-free D2 title game since 2004! For my e-mailers who always want me to familiarize them with the conferences in the divisions Balladeer’s Blog covers that means it’s a Gulf South Conference team against a Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference team.

So next Saturday it will be the REAL Championship Saturday!

NAIA – Sioux Falls Cougars vs the CC Fighting Saints

NCAA Division 3- UWW Warhawks vs the MU Purple Raiders

NCAA Division 2- Delta State Statesmen vs the UMD Bulldogs