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Mount Union 44 Whitewater 21 by Dick Ross |
ADVENTURES IN DAIRYLAND Living in the
Cleveland area, I think of myself as a city boy, but jammed expressways,
feeding big buildings from every possible angle, let you know that you were
experiencing a real city. Just driving by brought to mind the
throbbing energy of Carl Sandburg's "Chicago," "Stormy, husky, brawling,
City When we finally passed beyond the Heavy Rail lines in the expressway median, and the endless ranks of high tension lines, the low rolling hills of Southern Wisconsin were quite a relief. This is glacial moraine country, built by the glaciers, where they ended. Further north, the Wisconsin Dells, sculpted by the glaciers, were the likely "donors" of much of the material that built these hills. As we arrived in the Whitewater area, we passed a couple of "Road House" style Restaurants well outside of town, which seemed to be packed. Once we made it to the city itself, it seemed just about everything, including the Wal Mart had closed at 8:00 p.m., so we ended up selecting a gourmet meal at the Citgo Station. I'm not sure what the two busloads of Mount people did. Luckily they had had a meal in Indiana. We toured the Whitewater campus, a school of 10,000 during the week. On Friday night, it reminded me a great deal of Kent State: big buildings surrounded by acres of parking lots, but almost everyone seemed to have gone home for the weekend. As the daylight faded, we spotted what we thought was an immense monument in the cemetery, on a hill, in the middle of the campus. The setting sun gave it the appearance of being lit for the night, and we drove over to find out what hero or heroes had been memorialized, only to find that we had located the stack of the University's central heating plant! Saturday morning, still operating on Eastern time, we were up early and had coffee and pastries in the hotel lobby, with other Alums, player parents and a visiting girl's volleyball team dressed in red and black. We arrived at the campus in plenty of time for the pregame but moments too late to park free: just as we arrived they started charging. We went to the pregame party which, instead of being elsewhere, was combined with their "Fall Fest" Luncheon. Mount Union fans had a separate, but not quite equal, serving line on the opposite side of the beer tent. Like the Stagg Bowl, they provided a band which was not necessarily very good but was loud enough to make polite conversation impossible. Whitewater likes to bill its stadium as the best in Division III. Actually it does have a lot of seats 10,000 - 11,000, depending on the source, but it is reminiscent of John Carroll or Allegheny, where most of the seats are on the high rise home side. Mount Union Stadium has more seats on the visitors side. The stadium is built in a natural bowl and is a fairly scenic setting,
if
you are up high on the home side and can look out over the dairylands. The
north end of the field is a grassy bowl somewhat like the flagpole end of
the Stagg Bowl, complete with a scissors crane for the local Cable TV broadcast.
Other features brought Wilmington to mind: from the W in the middle of the
field, to the pine trees ringing the end zone and the lack of indoor
plumbing
on the visitors side. Guess they expected us to use the pine trees behind
the Whitewater's colors are the same as ours, purple and white. I was a bit startled when they took the field in brand new uniforms that were virtual copies of the Raiders black and purple "playoff" uniforms. I'm not sure if anyone on the team was surprised or confused, but I sure was. I did hear an assistant coach say "their guys are going to roast in those black shirts." "That's why we save 'em for November." Mount Union, wearing solid white, won the toss and, according to the game narrative, deferred to Whitewater. But #17 in white, Sr. Chris Kerns of Fairbault, MN returned the opening kick for 40 yards. #31 Sr. RB Dan Pugh of Norwalk/St Paul got the first carries of his "spotlight" season and caught the first touchdown pass from #7 Sr. QB Rob Adamson, of Akron/Manchester to put Mount up by six with less than a minute and a half gone. Whitewater apparently enjoyed watching Mount's offense work, as their
second offensive play was a fumble forced and recovered by #26 Sr. LB Justin
Burton from Salem/West Branch. Although Mount was able to move the ball back
to the Warhawk seven, the drive stalled and #48 So. George Wilders from Whitewater came back with a seven-minute 16-play drive with most of the work done by RB Chad Wurth who carried the ball, scored the touchdown and kicked the extra point. About one minute and
five plays later Rob Adamson hit #25 Jr. WR Nick Sirianni of Jamestown, NY for a 54-yard
touchdown. The extra point was added by #11 So. Chad Teague from Orrville. The second quarter open with an exchange of punts. "They" say that no one is irreplaceable; we'll sure miss Chuck Moore. Today, however, it took three guys to replace little Rodney Chenos. #12 Jr. Jesse Burghardt of Uniontown/Lake was the guy who took over the punting. After a brief appearance by #8 So. QB Zac Bruney of Martins Ferry, Rob Adamson got the team moving again with a 32-yard pass to Nick Sirianni. As he streaked diagonally away from me, I was reminded of many past Mount wideouts, including his older brother, now the offensive coordinator at Washington & Jefferson. The Whitewater Hawks, in black, came back with an eight-play, 78-yard drive that narrowed the margin to nine points: 23-14. #75 Jr. OL Big Larry Kinnard of Alliance limped off with about two minutes remaining and Mount's return ran out of gas with a fourth and four at the Whitewater 14. With only 37 seconds on the clock, most coaches would have run the
clock. Whitewater ran a play; #22 Sr. SS Dustin Blake from West Jefferson
forced
a fumble at the 16, giving Mount a second chance. Dan Pugh ran the 16 yards
around the right side and thanked his teammates. Chad Teague kicked the
extra Halftime entertainment consisted of a very nice show by Whitewater's 150 member marching band, led by a director in a fluorescent purple sport coat, that George Weimer might have envied, though not on a 90 degree day. While the band played, ultra light aircraft circled overhead and at least half of the home side crowd filed out. Published attendance in the 11,000 seat stadium was 4,030. They were expecting at least twice that number. I thought that there were more than the announced 4000, perhaps there were a lot of freebies, that were not counted. Third quarter, in the heat, was "sluggish" to say the least. Whitewater had several "Kool-Mist" fans blowing cold water on their side - I thought that NCAA regulations required that if "conveniences" - like booth communications or heaters were provided - that they had to be provided to both sides, or not at all. If they were offered to the Mount side, I'm not aware of it. Rob Adamson suffered his first interception of the season five minutes
into the quarter, but Mount's defense dug in and allowed the Hawks two and a
half plays, when our #16 Jr. DB Matt Caponi of Pittsburgh/Baldwin pulled
down
one of their passes. I hope there was a typing error on the return, because
Caponi's interception lead to a 12-play, 58-yard drive capped by a one-yard dive by Dan Pugh. On the first series of the final period Rob Adamson built his passing stats to nearly 350 yards, in just over three quarters, with a 57 yarder to #6 Sr. WR Derrick Leach from Summerfield/Shenandoah, who was bounced out of bounds in front of the visitors stands - this stadium does not include a track, so the fans were close enough to hear the coaches and feel the hits. Derrick caught Rob's final pass of the day, a 10 yarder over the middle, Adamson took a late hit, which was flagged, but went out with a dislocated knuckle on the index finger of his throwing hand. Zac Bruney came back in at quarterback. Those of you who have read these stories or seen this team - know that
Coach Kehres builds the team around the potentials of his players and does
not try to force people into an ironclad system. Bruney gives the team an
entirely different dimension. Adamson is a drop-back & Stand-up
quarterback. Bruney
is Bruney came into the game and
it was quickly fourth down and seven at the
Whitewater eight. The team went into a "shotgun" formation. The snap went over
his
head, Zac chased it back and to his right, picked up the ball - ducked a
defender and threw, on the run and across his body, to #34 So. RB Rick Ciccone of
With the score now 44-14, Whitewater went to their "other" quarterback, the one who was good enough that their coach wouldn't announce the starter until game time. After a fumble, Whitewater managed a
five-play, 35-yard drive for their "oh
by the way" touchdown that made the final score 44-21. A win is a win. Mount is now
at 29 straight; I felt that all three teams involved (including the WIAC
officials, clock operator and scorers) were a bit sloppy, and I did not care
much for the cannon, under the scoreboard, which was aimed and discharged
towards the visitors walkway. I've heard that these big Wisconsin schools complain that private schools won't play them. I now understand why. Next week is an "open date." I plan to attend the Alumni soccer game that weekend. The real (Ohio Athletic Conference) season starts in two weeks with an evening game (6:30
p.m.) against Baldwin-Wallace in Berea - there are plenty of nice places to eat or
party,
close by. I hope that, as usual, a lot of Cleveland area Alums will join us.
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