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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 1237931, member: 289"] NCAA D3 FINALS For the fifth consecutive time in their championship rivalry, the WISCONSIN-WHITEWATER Warhawks defeated the Mount Union Purple Raiders for the NCAA Division III championship, 43-34. It mattered little that the Purple Raiders had set an NCAA record by scoring 844 points , (60 a game) or that their defesne this eyar had been better than their defense from last year (130 points surrendered vs. 318). None of those blow-outs were against Whitewater, who immediately established control of the game with consecutive 78 yards touchdown drives, (of 11 and 10 yards), on their first two possessions. They missed an extra point but were up 13-0. They looked just as they did last year when they smashed Mount Union 52-14 for the title. They were dominating the line of scrimmage on both offense and defense. Kevin Burke, who had just received his second Gagliardi Trophy, the Heisman of Division III, was on the run when threw the ball. And the Raiders didn’t have a very balanced attack as they tried to struggle back into the game on Burke’s passing. Meanwhile Whitewater didn’t have many explosive offensive plays. They seemed able to punch a hole in the Mount Union front wall for five yards at their will. Meanwhile, their excellent quarterback, Matt Behrendt , had plenty of time to get passes off from his positon in the pocket. It looked as if the Warhawks could name the score. But Burke did manage to lad a scoring drive that got Mount Union to within 7-13. The game seemed to hang in the balance for a while. You felt that if the Warhawks scored next, they’d be in control all the way but if the Raiders scored next, we’d have a ball game. THenn Brady Grayvold stepped in front of a Burke sideline pass, grabbed it and danced into the end zone to make it 20-7. Burke mounted another scoring drive but another turnovers, this time a fumble recovered by Marcus McLin on Mount Union’s 17 yard line, led to another Warhawk score and a 27-14 lead. Antoher Burke interception was returned by McLin 28 yards to the Mount Union 28, setting up the field goal that put the Warhawks ahead 30-14 at the half. Vince Kehres, the son of Larry, who built the Mount Union program into a powerhouse, must have made quite a halftime speech because the Purple Raiders come out and totally dominated the third quarter, looking like the program that had won all those national championships. Mixing running and passing plays better than they had in the first half, they duplicated Whitewater’s first half feat of driving for touchdowns on their first two possessons, (on 9 and 10 play drives of 67 and 79 yards) of the second half to pull within 28-30. A field goal with 5:05 left in third actually gained them the lead over their nemesis, 31-30 and it appeared they had all the momentum. But now the non-explosive War Hawks exploseded. Dennis Moore caught a swing pass from Behrendt and zig-zagged his way through the Mount Union defense for 75 yards and a touchdown to re-take the lead, 37-31. It was the key play of the game. The teams exchanged field goals after that and Whitewater was the winner again at 43-34. Behrendt out-played Burke, completing 26 of 38 for 365 yards for 4 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. Burke had 25 compeltions but in 47 attempts for 323 yards and 3scores but 4 big interceptions. Jordan Ratcliffe ran for 116 yards for the winners. Moore ran for 74 and had 108 yards receiving and the big score. Jake Kumerow had 130 yards and a score on 8 catches. Logan Nemeth ran for 90 yards and a touchdown for Mount Union, who wound up scoring and incredible 875 points in 15 games but, once again, it wasn’t enough to beat the Warhawks. WISCONSIN-WHITEWATER 15-0, (601-183), Ranked #1 post season record: 43-7 (6 titles) They have also won 32 games in a row. They had previous 46 game winning streak from 2009-12. [/QUOTE]

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