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Saturday, November 14, 2009
Witt completes perfect regular season
SPRINGFIELD — The trophy changed hands more often in a few minutes than a football at the bottom of the pile. Everyone wanted to touch it. More wanted to kiss it.
Homecoming queens don’t get the attention the North Coast Athletic Conference championship trophy received after Wittenberg beat Wooster 42-6 on Saturday, Nov. 14. The still-undefeated Tigers claimed sole possession of the trophy for the first time since 2001, likely securing home-field advantage in the NCAA Division III playoffs for one round or two.
“Where’s that trophy?” senior wide receiver Patrick Williams asked.
“It’s mine,” said senior cornerback Keenan Freeman later, clasping it to his chest.
Yet no one showed better trophy possession skill than senior linebacker Kyle Lohrman. He made it his personal mission to escort the trophy from Edwards-Maurer Field to the coaches’ offices.
“I’m so excited. I can’t believe this happened,” Lohrman said. “We’ve been working four years for this, all the seniors, and finally all our hard work’s paid off.”
That work resulted in the fourth 10-0 regular season, and the first since 2000, for coach Joe Fincham. Two brave players, obviously secure with their spots on the team, doused him with a bucket of ice water in the closing seconds. Fincham said he had no idea it was coming.
Outside Wittenberg, few saw this 10-0 season coming, either. This team wasn’t ranked until beating Wabash in its sixth game. NCAC coaches picked the Tigers to finish third.
“Going 10-0 is really hard,” Fincham said. “You’re not going to have your ‘A’ game‚ every Saturday, and you’ve got to be talented enough that when you don’t have your ‘A’ game, you can still win.”
The Tigers had their best game Saturday. Aaron Huffman completed 24 of 31 passes for 277 yards and rushed for two touchdowns. All three running backs — Corey Weber, Conner Warye and Jeff Wilbur — had TD runs of more than 16 yards.
And the defense, led by Brad McKinley’s six tackles, cemented its status as one of the most dominant in Wittenberg history. The Tigers gave up just 53 points this season, the best mark in the nation in all divisions of NCAA football and the best total by a Wittenberg defense since 1998.
“Three hundred and 64 days ago,” Fincham said, “we had a team meeting where we talked about the commitment that was needed and the sacrifice and all the things you need to do to have a championship-caliber football team, and guys like Taylor Scherer and Pat Williams and Lance Phillips, and they took it and really did a great job with it.”
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Final: Fort Loramie beats Southeastern 63-21
The final is Fort Loramie 63-21. The Redskins will play Marion Local for the Region 24 final next week.
3:08 left in the third: Reed Florence tossed a 9-yard TD to Tyler Cooper. 42-14 Fort Loramie.
Another interception for Southeastern, and another score for Fort Loramie.
The score was set up by an 81-yard interception return for Jace Humphreys.
42-7 with six minutes left in the third quarter.
- At halftime, Fort Loramie leads Southeastern 35-7.
Some quick stats:
Fort Loramie has 381 rushing yards. Mitch Raterman has 203 yards on 17 carries.
Reed Florence has 172 passing yards and a touchdown, but also has two interceptions.
The Redskins are dominating the line of scrimmage and running through huge holes in the Southeastern defense. They have 14 first downs and 27 passing yards.
The Redskins responded to the Trojans’ touchdown with a five-play, 71-yard drive, all runs, to go up 35-7.
- Southeastern is on the board after a 37-yard touchdown pass from Reed Florence to Austin Mercer.
Fort Loramie is gashing Southeastern with long runs. The latest was a 38-yard touchdown from Mitch Raterman. Fort Loramie’s up 21-0 with 10:43 left in the half.
- After one quarter it’s 14-0 Fort Loramie, and the Redskins are driving again. Fort Loramie had six first downs and 142 rushing yards in the first quarter.
Southeastern has moved the football but Reed Florence has thrown two interceptions.
Reed Florence threw an interception on Southeastern’s first drive. Southeastern’s down 7-0.
Fort Loramie drove right down the field and opened the scoring with a 1-yard touchdown run. We’ve got about eight minutes left in the first quarter.
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