‘THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE’: Penultimate contests create thrills and anguish for ‘Cat football
By RUSTY RAE,
McMinnville N-R/News-Register, 12/11/2020 print edition. One of a special
series of 'Remembrance of games past' features by Linfielder Rusty.
“There can be only one” – the tagline from the 1980s cult film Highlander could well be the motto for the NCAA Division III playoffs. Only one team finishes the season with a win along with the “NATTY” — the national title.
Along the way, many
competitive football teams finish their seasons with tears and anguish. They
fell short of their season-long goal. Perhaps no loss is more excruciating than
defeat in the penultimate contest.
In the 21st century, Linfield’s Wildcats played four times in the semifinal round, losing thrice. We’ll visit the 2004 championship season next week.
In 2009, 2014 and 2015, the ‘Cats made it to the semifinal round, one of four remaining DIII teams left in mid-December, only to return home vanquished.
In the last 20 years, though the Wildcats dominated the west coast, they found their nemeses in the titans of the Midwest. They lost four times to the eventual national champion in one round or another, and twice to teams who played for the title but lost.
Strength of the squad, one element determining playoff success, remains a challenge. Linfield head coach Joseph Smith can’t recall a semi contest in which two or three starters weren’t sidelined. Nevertheless, Smith says, “The team must continue to get better each game of the season, regardless of personnel issues.”
Each game was played in the Midwest time zone, in frigid weather, handing the home team a favorable position even before the coin flip. However, you must play the hand you’re dealt. The Wildcats have been more than up to the challenge, regardless of the result.
Take, for example, the 2009 playoff against University of Whitewater on the Warhawks’ home field. Linfield, championed by junior quarterback Aaron Boehme, entered ranked number five in the nation with a 12-0 record. The UWW squad, number two, had never trailed the entire season.
Until the ‘Cats visited.
The ‘Cats fell behind 10-0 before Boehme, now the Linfield co-offensive coordinator and tight ends coach, scrambled 67 yards on an option play.
From the Warhawk 10-yard line, Linfield scored in three plays, the final four yards on a Boehme-to-Ryan Henderson pass. At the half, the ‘Cats trailed 10-7. The best (and worst) was yet to transpire.
On the first drive of the second half, Boehme led Linfield on a 78-yard scoring drive. The game-changer: a 49-yard rocket to Gunna Cederberg. From the four-yard line, Boehme struck pay dirt with his legs, giving the hometown faithful a 14-10 lead.
As the clock started for the fourth, Josh Repp split the uprights for a 35-yard field goal, increasing the lead to 17-10.
The Warhawks replicated
Linfield’s field goal with a 25-yarder of their own, narrowing the gap to
17-13. Shortly after the midpoint of the final period, UWW pushed ahead, the
result of a 68-yard pass. With 7:28 left, the ‘Cats were on the short end of a
20-17 score.
In a seesaw fourth
quarter defensive play keyed the end result. Linfield forced a Warhawk punt,
and with 3:10 remaining focused on a game-winning drive.
But it was not to be.
On fourth-and-10 from the ‘Cat 32, Boehme’s pass was intercepted. Two plays later, UWW’s outstanding running back, Levell Coppage darted 45 yards for a score and the 27-17 final.
“It’s a game in which the dominoes fell in the wrong direction,” noted Boehme this week.
“We had our two quarters, but we just couldn’t hold them off,” he added.
Smith recalled, “I was so proud of this team. Other than at quarterback, we didn’t match up very well with Whitewater – they were a very talented club – probably better than us up and down the line.
“But our guys just wouldn’t quit – we competed so well against them. It was a great back-and-forth battle and we just wore down a bit in the fourth quarter.”
Fast-forward five years to 2014.
The ‘Cats engage in another titanic contest against UWW. Whitewater is the number-one team in the nation at the time; Linfield ranks 10, mostly based on a dreadful 31-28 loss to an awful Willamette team.
However, the ‘Cats prove they’re superior to their ranking, with three consecutive playoff wins, including a scintillating 31-28 win in Belton, Texas, over number two-ranked University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.
The Warhawks secured a 14-0 advantage at the half. In the last three minutes of the second quarter, Linfield fumbled a punt, giving UWW a golden opportunity to tack on more points. However, Kyle Belcher picked off Warhawks QB Matt Behrendt in the end zone, ending the threat while boosting the ‘Cats’ confidence.
Buoyed by the defensive stop and with halftime adjustments, the Wildcats clawed their way back into the competition. Jordan Giza jumped on a Warhawk fumble, allowing QB Sam Riddle great field position.
He tossed a 14-yard pass to Levi Altringer for Linfield’s first TD at the 8:16 mark of the third. As the third wore on, UWW was unable to solve the riddle of Riddle’s legs. He riddled the Warhawk defense with the run-pass-option. Riddle rushed for 13, 31, and the final 17 yards to tie the score at 14 with 2:33 left in the third.
Both teams slugged it out in the final stanza. UWW landed a haymaker at the five-minute mark. Running back Dennis Moore danced 33-yards for what turned out to be the winning score. But Linfield blocked the PAT; Whitewater’s lead was 20-14.
“We were on a roll – one more score to tie or win the game,” Riddle noted.
Smith, every bit as confident in his team, noted, “Even though we were behind, you could feel momentum seemed to be with us. We were focused on the last drive to win the game.”
Linfield drove from its 27-yard line to the UWW 27, with a Riddle 30-yard pass to Altringer the majority of the damage. On a third-and-10 from the 27, Altringer snagged another Riddle bullet for seven yards, but was three-yards short of a first down.
Notes Smith, “We’ve had a very makeable first down and I’m thinking of red zone plays that we can use for the score – plays I’ve been saving for just this scenario.”
Simultaneously, Smith was also watching the clock. “I didn’t want to score and leave a lot of time for Whitewater to be able to make a comeback,” he added.
Riddle, in first year in the Linfield system, remembers the call from Smith was a pass play with two five-yard outs. “I went one way, but they had the receiver covered. I tried to go the other way but was sacked and fumbled the ball.”
That scrambled attempt
ended the drive along with the game.
Smith recalls, “That play is 99 percent effective in the red zone. But this time we did just about everything wrong, technically.
“Against weaker teams you can get away with those mistakes, but against equal or superior athletic talent, they expose any cracks in your technique. In this most important moment of the season, that small crack wound up sinking the vessel.”
The following year number-two ranked Linfield traveled to number-four St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. The NCAA’s decision to send the higher ranked ‘Cats to Minnesota troubled Smith, to say the least. Many believed it was simply another example of the midwest/east coast bias.
Smith found St. Thomas even less hospitable, both in terms of organization, facilities, and ultimately on the field. “It was the most unfair environment that we’ve ever played in. It created an unfair advantage for them.
“At halftime there was
no place to talk to the team, and during warmups I was almost kicked off the
field by a security guard,” Smith said.
If the environment felt hostile, the game was a mirror of the host’s animosity. With a massive offensive line, the Tommies rolled to a 23-3 halftime lead. Facing running back Jordan Roberts, who churned for 258 yards on 33 carries, Linfield simply didn’t have an answer.
The ‘Cats entered as a shadow of themselves at the start of the season, with Tom Knecht again starting in place of All-America QB Riddle.
Riddle started the second half, but was still gimpy from the high ankle sprain suffered two weeks previously. While he sparked the Wildcats to a pair of fourth quarter scores, it was too little, too late, resulting in a 38-17 disappointment.
“I thought I could have started, but the evaluation during warm-ups pushed the start to Tom (Knecht). In the second half, we weren’t able to win the one-on-ones with their defense and our O line had a problem finding the right protection schemes — St. Thomas ran a number of complex stunts.
‘“It was difficult to get in rhythm, particularly playing from so far behind and I was regularly in ‘improvise mode,’” Riddle said.
Smith added, “Our inability to stop the run put us in a hole early on. They beat us up front, and we were never able to really get them into a second and long scenario. In a passing situation they were not very good — but they overwhelmed us early on and we weren’t able to score enough to stay in the game.”
The Tommies’ one-dimensional strategy caught up to them in the title game, where Mt. Union flattened them in a 34-6 result.
St. Thomas is no longer a DIII team, having been voted out of the league. Many within the DIII community would cite the reason for their exit as their haughty treatment of opponents, as they were considered by many a dirty team that took cheap shots whenever they could.
There’s no embarrassment in losing in the semifinal round. The agony of being so close to the championship game and falling short is a memory most wish to forget.
There are times, I’m
sure, when the spirits of games past, like sharks silently cruising in the
recesses of his mind, must jolt Linfield head football coach Joseph Smith.
It’s a time when he remembers: “There can only be one.”
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