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Mount Union 70 Widener 30 by Dick Ross |
THEN THERE WERE TWO...
Today's game is Widener's fifth trip to the semifinals: they won the championship in 1979 and 1981; lost the semifinal game to Wittenberg in 1977, and to Dayton in 1980. Widener arrived, by virtue of a 61-27 victory over Springfield, and via a 390 mile bus trip. The Pioneers took the field, today, wearing powder blue pants, white jerseys with light blue numerals, outlined in yellow-orange and blue helmets with a Gothic style "W" on the sides. The Raiders wore their play-off black and purple, with long white socks. It seemed to me that, if a
person who knew nothing about these teams was asked to pick a winner between the team
wearing baby blue and the team in deep purple and black, most would pick the team in
black.
Mount's first two-second half
scores were Chuck Moore specials, draw plays into the line, against the pass rush,
bouncing through a seam, and GONE, one for 52 yards and one for 35. Adam Marino
picked up 8-yard and 14-yard TD's on his way to tying a Division lll play-off record, with
17 catches, for the day.
Widener managed to score an
"oh by the way" TD with three minutes left, which raised the total number of
points scored to 100 even.
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For
all of those who said that they never heard of this school, don't feel too bad.
Turns out that it didn't exist, under this name, until fairly recently. Forerunners
of Widener were founded in Wilmington, Delaware, as early as 1821. In 1862 the
school relocated to Chester, Pa., outside of Philly, and was known as Pennsylvania
Military Academy, until 1892, and later, Pennsylvania Military College, until 1972, with a
coed non-military unit known as Penn-Morton College. The name became Widener College
in 1972 and Widener University in 1979; they now have a total of eight schools on three
campuses in two states. In addition to the Chester Campus, they also operate a Law
School and an outreach program in Wilmington, Delaware and a Law School and Graduate
Nursing program in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The name comes from an old Philadelphia
family, members of which were on the school's Board of Trustees, until recently.
I
walked into the Stadium behind our new president, Dr. Jack Ewing, and overheard him say
that he needed to be on time as, he felt, Mount's scoring would begin early, and he needed
to be on hand to help with the push-ups. It turned out he was right, but not quite
as he might have predicted. For the second week in a row, our opponents scored on
the opening play, with a 63-yard pass and run down the far side line to their big # 82, WR
Mike Coleman of Wilmington, Del. Mount's # 10, Jr. RB Chuck Moore of Mogadore, tried
his best to tie the game with a kickoff return, but was stopped at the North 14-yard
line. On Mount's first play # 16 Sr. QB Gary Smeck of Lancaster hit # 2 Sr. Adam
"Cool Hands" Marino of Cuyahoga Falls for six and Jr. Rodney "Poco
Tigre" Chenos of Galloway tied the score at seven, with only
47 seconds off the clock. Although
Marino seemed to be still walking a bit gingerly, it was obvious that he was
"back." At this rate we might be looking at a game with 800 to 1,000 points
scored! The boys in baby blue slowed things down a bit on their next trip to the end
zone, taking nearly four minutes to cover 62 yards, with the final play to their other
"big gun" from Wilmington, # 19 Jr. WR Jim Jones. Early in the play-offs
he and Coleman started playing "both ways," something that's a bit unusual, even
in Division lll, especially on a team this far into the post-season. 
The extra point was blocked, and the Pioneer's lead held for less than three
minutes, as Mount's men, lead by "Ground" Chuck Moore and # 31 Soph. RB Dan Pugh
of Norwalk/Saint Paul, took over, and never looked back. It looked like the first
team to punt would be the looser; that was Widener with about six minutes left in the
quarter. Mount failed to capitalize on this one, running out of downs on the North
27-yard line, but got another chance when # 92 Jr. DE Todd Braden of Vinton
County/McArthur blocked a Pioneer punt and # 23 Jason Perkins OLB from Wakeman/ Firelands
returned it to the visitor's eight-yard line, setting up a two-yard TD by Moore six
scoreboard seconds later.
As
I've commented before, half-time at playoff games usually consists of trying to stay
warm. This week we worried that the Raiders might have opened the door for a second
half comeback by the visitors. While the fans were just trying to keep warm, Mount's
coaching staff, famous for the half-time adjustments, was just warming up. The
Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that the Raiders turned Mount Union Stadium into a dog
track with thirty-five unanswered points, before Coach Kehres downshifted, in the fourth
quarter. In the pre-game newspapers Widener's Coach had been a bit boastful of his
team's 61-point game last week. I guess LK decided to show him what 60+ felt like,
by giving the first string some experience in playing the second half. On the
visitor's side some of our guests were, apparently, warming up with a bit of "liquid
sunshine." I've been attending Mount Union games for almost forty years and
have never heard the NCAA alcohol policy read before, with threats of ejection and arrest,
by the Alliance Police. I heard
that some of the Widener fans also planned to make Sunday's Browns vs. Eagles game, in
Cleveland. Philadelphia Eagles' fans will always be known for booing Santa Claus.
# 20
Jr. DB Alex Grinch closed out the third quarter with an interception and a 32-yard return,
setting up an all Dan Pugh TD, on eight straight runs to cover the remaining 33 yards, and
allowing me to correct an error from last week. Alex's home town is Grove City,
Ohio, not Pennsylvania. We didn't get many students from the Columbus area, when I
was an undergrad, but that seems to have changed, lately, perhaps due to the fact that we
get some coverage in the Columbus papers because of Gary Smeck from Lancaster and Jesse
Pearson, from Columbus.