This is the press release our football coaches wrote after losing their first game last week. We were undefeated in the regular season last year.
Can't wait to see what they wrote about this week's loss
They have a flair for the dramatic...
http://www.lindenwood.edu/athletics/foo ... ummary.htm
Wildcats stun 7th-ranked Lions on Opening Day, 23-6
So much for that 11-game HAAC winning streak.
First of all, it's important to be clear on two things: a) a Lindenwood football team which opened the season ranked 7th nationally will offer no excuses for losing its opener at Culver-Stockton, and b) one of the Heart's most stunning upsets ever had as much to do with how well Culver's coaches and players performed, as it did to do with how poorly LU's did.
Still, if not biblical in proportions, Saturday afternoon's ambush of the Lions in Canton, Mo., certainly qualifies as a huge upset, one which could have far-reaching ramifications for both teams. Taking the game to the visitors from the opening kickoff, young head coach Christian Guenther's Culver team made his coaching debut one to remember, knocking off the defending HAAC champs, 23-6.
The oldest cliche in the upset business is, "The longer you let the underdog stay in the game, the more dangerous they become". The Lions executed this plan to perfection on Saturday, failing to score on two early trips to the red zone, before handing the Wildcats nine unanswered points without Culver's offense stepping on the field early in the second quarter. Just like that, a team with only the most optimistic of hopes was up 9-0, and the blood was in the water.
First, sophomore quarterback Gerry Connell was forced into an intentional grounding penalty in his own end zone, after being sacked on the previous play, making it 2-0 in favor of Culver on the first play of the second period. Then, after LU recovered the ensuing free kick at the C-SC 33-yard line, sophomore Brent Hodgkiss threw an interception on 4th-and-8 which was promptly returned for a TD by Wildcat junior Shannon Benton.
"In no way did we play or coach well enough to win this football game," said head coach Patrick Ross. "But those two mistakes in the second quarter gave their team the belief they could win, and after that, it didn't seem nearly as hot on their sideline as it did on ours. Excuses are for losers, and we will not make them - we simply got outcoached and outplayed."
A third costly error popped up later in the 2nd quarter, as junior H-Back Steven Kennedy coughed up the rock at the LU 27-yard line with little over three minutes remaining before intermission - the Lions' fourth turnover of the first half - giving the Wildcats golden field position. They didn't waste time, as tailback Ricky Williams broke a tackle by LU's Josh Roberts at the 20 and raced 26 yards for the touchdown two plays later. Nothing like jumping up 16-0 at the half, at home, as a huge underdog, in your coach's head coaching debut, in the blazing heat ... you get the idea.
The Lions came to life at the start of the second half, with the defense posting a three-and-out on C-SC's opening possession, and the offense following that with a 10-play, 65-yard scoring drive, which ended with Hodgkiss diving into the front corner of the end zone at the end of a three-yard run. The LU defense then forced another Culver punt, and the offense launched another drive, this one lasting 12 plays and 53 yards, before dying on downs at the Culver 33.
At that point, the dagger to the Lions' heart came in the person of sophomore tailback Aaron Bergeson, who rattled off three straight runs - the middle one for 53 yards - scoring from two yards out to make it 23-6 with 2:10 left in the third quarter. Nowhere in the LU game plan was there a contingency for being down by three scores going to the fourth quarter of this game, and the final period was a painful thing to watch, as LU was forced into a two-minute scramble that produced very little.
"It was just one of those days for us where everything that could go wrong, did," said Ross. "Give all the credit for that to Culver, because they deserve more than people saying it was just because we didn't show up. We'll be back, and we still believe this team is a championship caliber group of people who will have the heart to pursue all of the goals we have for this season. Starting next week."
The Lions will have to regroup and refocus in a hurry - up next is a trip to the Chicago suburbs to play Olivet Nazarene, a 7-3 team last season which won its' opener over Anderson (Ind.) by a count of 33-18 on Saturday. Game time is set for 6:00 pm in Bourbonnais, Ill.