Published: Sunday, December 3, 2006
MUC escapes Capital, 17-14
The Purple Raiders got their closest shave in quite a while to stay unbeaten.
By ERIC HAMILTON
ALLIANCE — There's something about playing Mount Union that brings out the best in the Capital University football team. But as many teams have found out in the past 10 years, most times the best isn't even enough.
For the second year in a row, Capital's stellar season came to an end at the hands of the Purple Raiders. After falling to Mount Union in the 2005 quarterfinals, the Crusaders again came up three points short, as the Purple Raiders snatched a 17-14 victory Saturday at Mount Union Stadium.
"This was a heck of a football game," said Capital coach Jim Collins, the architect of the Crusaders' rise to national prominence. "It says a lot for our league to have these two teams playing at such a high level and ranked in the top five in the country. We obviously weren't happy with the outcome, but our kids played with heart and desire today. Coming in our goal was to contain [Nate] Kmic and prevent the big play and I think we did that because his longest run was 15 yards. But they switched quarterbacks and went to the ground game, moved the ball and kept it."
Mount Union's explosive offense couldn't come up with a play, but it turned out it didn't need to. Just holding on to the football was enough to keep Capital quarterback Rocky Pentello and the offense off the field.
MUC dominates time
The Purple Raiders' ground game controlled the game's pace and allowed Mount Union to dominate time of possession, especially in the second half.
Hoarding the ball for 38 minutes, 8 seconds, compared to 21:52 for Capital, Mount Union ran 73 plays. The Crusaders had 49 offensive snaps.
"You have to decide what your strengths are each week and we felt that to control the game, the best thing to do was run it," said Mount Union coach Larry Kehres. "It looked like early on they were keying on some plays that are usually successful for us. We brought Greg [Micheli] in to give us another quality runner.
"I was scared to death about this game, to be honest. Capital gave us a good game last year in the playoffs and I expected them to do it again and they did."
Mount Union (13-0) rushed for 330 yards, led by 169 yards from Kmic. Micheli had a career day on the ground, piling up 116 yards and both Mount Union touchdowns.
The Purple Raiders got on the board first, marching 54 yards with 10 straight running plays. It was all Kmic and Micheli in the series, as Micheli capped the drive with an 8-yard scoring run to give Mount Union a 7-0 lead with 2:31 left in the first quarter.
Capital ties game
Two drives later, Capital (11-2) tied the game with a 10-yard touchdown pass from Pentello to Mike Niedzwiecki with 12:00 remaining in the second period. With the game still deadlocked at 7-all, Capital's defense stood firm on Mount Union's last possession of the third quarter.
On fourth-and-goal from the 1, Capital stuffed Kmic just short of the goal line and took over on downs.
That defensive stand ended up playing into Mount Union's hands, however. The Purple Raiders forced a three-and-out by Capital, who was forced to punt from its end zone. After a 24-yard punt, Mount Union set up with prime field position at the Capital 20.
Six plays later, Mike Zimmerman gave the Purple Raiders a 10-7 advantage with a 20-yard field goal at the 11:13 mark of the final period.
After another Capital punt, Mount Union increased its advantage. Driving 60 yards in eight plays, the Purple Raiders padded the lead to 17-7 on a 1-yard plunge by Micheli.
Pentello rallied Capital with a scoring drive in just 1:23, throwing a 42-yard touchdown pass to Derick Alexander with 5:10 remaining to make it 17-14. But Mount Union continued to move the football, taking time of the clock in the process. The Crusaders stopped Mount Union on fourth down at Capital's 21 and took over with just 14 seconds left. Capital ran three plays, getting as far as its own 37, but ran out of time.
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