A whole 9 yards short: St. Ambrose loses in final moments
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By Steve Batterson | Sunday, November 25, 2007 |
CHICAGO — Casey Weidenbacher stopped the St. Ambrose football team 9 yards short of a miracle Saturday.
With 12 seconds remaining, the St. Xavier defensive back wrapped his arms around an intercepted pass and smothered it at the Cougars’ 9-yard line, ending a comeback and the season for the seventh-ranked Fighting Bees.
St. Ambrose scored with 39 seconds to play, recovered an onside kick and moved 43 yards before losing 33-27 to 10th-ranked St. Xavier in the opening round of the NAIA playoffs at rainy Deaton Field.
“I thought we were going to win the game. We were right there,” Bees quarterback Jim DuPage said. “The defense did what we needed it to do. It got us the ball back at a time when the offense had it rolling.”
DuPage gave St. Ambrose a chance, hitting Brennan McCarron with a 9-yard touchdown pass to finish off a 13-play, 80-yard drive.
The ensuing onside kick bounced off a St. Xavier player and quickly was recovered by the Bees’ Dan Eble on the St. Ambrose 37-yard line.
“It was a play we practice every week, but we never needed. I guess it was fitting that we had to run it for the first time in this game,” Eble said. “I saw the ball hit the guy and it was just laying there on the ground right in front of me so I fell on it.”
After an incomplete pass on first down, Kyle Korth slipped past the Cougars’ defense and caught a picture-perfect pass from DuPage for a 37-yard gain. That was followed by a quick 6-yard pass to Michael Hayward.
St. Ambrose used its final timeout with 20 seconds remaining and after an incomplete pass on a 2nd-and-4 play, Weidenbacher picked off a pass over the middle.
“Nothing surprised me in this game,’’ St. Xavier coach Mike Feminis said. “That’s eight times in the last nine years our game with St. Ambrose has come down to the last play. Not the last minute, the last play. That’s just the way it is when we get together.”
The turnover was the fourth of the game for St. Ambrose, which had turned the ball over just 14 times in its 10 regular-season games.
“I threw some bad balls today, especially early. It was a frustrating start,” said DuPage, who completed 28 of 48 passes for 314 yards and three touchdowns.
In addition to throwing a pair of first-half interceptions, DuPage fumbled once. Although the Bees’ defense did what it could to minimize the damage, the Cougars collected 10 points off of the mistakes.
That allowed Shane Longest’s third field goal of the game — a 20-yard kick with 19 seconds left in the second quarter — to give St. Xavier (10-2) the chance to take a 16-14 lead into the locker room at halftime.
The kick erased the lead St. Ambrose had built following touchdown catches of 23 yards by Korth, who caught 10 passes for 115 yards, and 25 yards by Hayward.
After the break, the Cougars played keep away.
St. Xavier quarterback Billy Yeo, who completed 27 of 43 passes for 220 yards, orchestrated a pair of lengthy clock-chewing scoring drives that left the Bees (8-3) in a 26-14 hole heading into the fourth quarter.
The Cougars held the ball for 12:03 on third-quarter scoring drives of 16 and 13 plays that covered 70 and 40 yards.
“We couldn’t get off the field,” Eble said.
In the process, St. Xavier converted on five straight fourth-down opportunities while tiring the Bees’ defense.
“The third quarter was the difference. We needed three-and-out, but they on third down and fourth down, they converted,” St. Ambrose coach Mike Magistrelli said. “Our guys could have folded, but they didn’t. They fought and battled and believed until the end that they could win this game.
“There are a lot of highs and lows in any game and things are easy when everything is going well, but our guys, when times where tough, they didn’t quit. They can always be proud of that.”
Trailing 26-14, the Bees answered with an 11-play, 68-yard march of its own, pulling within a 26-21 score on a 2-yard carry by McCarron with 12:21 to play.
Yeo, who hit five of his first 15 passes in the game, hit 16 of 19 in the second half and found Mike Maher open for a 26-yard touchdown with 3:10 remaining before St. Ambrose made its late push.
“Their guy gave me the inside and Billy made a perfect throw,’’ said Maher, who caught 11 passes for 103 yards. “We knew we needed to put up another score. We were playing St. Ambrose and we knew they weren’t going to go away.”
Steve Batterson can be contacted at (563) 383-2290 or sbatterson@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.
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