Mequon
After building a 24-0 lead,
Concordia, now 2-0 in the NAC, survived a 4th quarter
scare to get past visiting Benedictine 24-20 at Century Stadium
Saturday afternoon.
The Falcons dominated all aspects of the
game through the first thirty minutes and led 21-0 at halftime and
24-0 near the end of the third quarter before the game nearly got
away from them.
CUW fumbled the ball away on their
first offensive play of the game at their own 25 but the Falcon
defense set a trend for the next 40 minutes by stuffing the Eagles
(1-1) on three straight plays prior to a missed BU field goal
attempt.
Concordia's second possession was
much better as the Falcons drove 76 yards in 11 plays, capped by
Kasiem Duran's 1 yard TD run. Dan Winsey's point after made it 7-0 but
Concordia was not finished gashing the heralded Eagle
defense.
With just over 5 minutes left in the
first half Duran bolted in one more time, completing a 71 yard
march to make it 14-0 after Winsey's kick. Before the half was over CUW had
another 7 points courtesy of TJ Pacchioli's quarterback sneak to
make it 21-0 at the break.
The third quarter looked to be a
carbon copy… to a point. BU went nowhere and a CUW drive
stalled at the Benedictine 18 before Winsey's 35 yard field goal
made it 24-0 in favor of the Falcons.
On the pass play that took the ball
to the 18 (short of a first down) Pacchioli was hit as he
threw. A knee injury took
the senior signal caller out of the game and also took nearly all
of the wind out of the Falcon sails for the rest of the chilly
afternoon.
The
first sign of real danger occurred when BU's Kevin Jednakowski
hauled in a 54 yard TD toss from Matt Brown with a minute left in
the third quarter after two Falcon defenders collided on the play
to make it 24-7. Then with 3:24 remaining in the game, John Alessi
completed a 48 yard drive with a 1 yard run to cut the CUW lead to
24-14.
Hoping
to use up clock time Concordia went nowhere in 3 plays after
recovering an onside kick attempt and eventually punted to the
Benedictine 14. All looked safe with just
over two minutes left in the contest but Brown inexplicably was
able to connect with Mike Trombetta over the top of CUW's prevent
defense for an 86 yard scoring strike and suddenly the lead was
just 4 points after the extra point was
botched.
Fortunately
BU was penalized on their onside kick as the ball did not travel 10
yards and the Falcons were finally able to run out the
clock.
Even
with all the late Eagle heroics, statistics were still hugely in
CUW's favor. Concordia
gained 358 yards (237 of those on the ground) and held Benedictine
to 206. Almost all of those
BU yards came in the second half.
Duran
ran for 99 CUW yards and Austin Carlton added 60 behind a much
improved offensive line.
Pacchioli was 11 of 20 for 118 yards before being
injured.
Defensively
Paul Metcalf and Justin Rogers each had an interception and Errol
Boyd led CUW tacklers with 5 solos and 3 assists as Concordia
defenders made rushing for positive yards nearly impossible for BU
ball carriers.
Score
by Quarters 1 2 3 4 F
Benedictine
0 0 7 13 - 20
Concordia
Wisconsin 7 14 3 0 - 24
