Another cardiac Hawks week
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With 4:13 left, after a career-long 40-yard field goal by Ryan Boyea to make the score 31-28, St. John Fisher took over and set out on a 15-play drive over four minutes, getting the ball down to the 3-yard line with less than 10 seconds left. After St. John Fisher lined up for the field goal, Hartwick called a timeout to freeze the kicker. When the Cardinals came out for the fourth-down play, however, they lined up on offense instead of for the game-tying field goal.
At the snap, Cardinal backup quarterback Tommy Hammel rolled out to the right out of the shotgun and was stuffed by a host of Hartwick defenders, including outside linebacker Corey Rolling to ice the game for the Hawks.
“Corey made the initial hit and Joe Flaherty and Colin Plass cleaned it up,” Carr told The (Oneonta) Daily Star. “I don’t want to second-guess them, and I can’t fault the (Fisher) coach for going for the win on the road.”
Before that play, St. John Fisher had been perfect on fourth down, going 6-for-6.
Senior quarterback Jason Boltus completed 22 of 32 attempts for 336 yards and two touchdowns and also rushed for a one-yard touchdown as well. For his performance, Boltus was awarded the co-offensive player of the week award in the Empire 8, sharing the award with Alfred quarterback Paul Keeley.
St. John Fisher rushed for all 300 yards on the ground. Senior James Reile ran for 155 yards on 29 carries and a touchdown, and Ryan Hanson ran for 113 yards on 18 carries and a touchdown.
The Hawks extended their home winning streak to six games and it was the first time since 2002 that Hartwick beat St. John Fisher.
All three of Hartwick’s wins this year -- over St. John Fisher, Ithaca and Husson -- are at home, against teams they lost to in 2006.
Hartwick improves to 3-1 overall and 2-0 in conference, while St. John Fisher falls to 4-1 and 1-1 in conference. The Cardinals also fell from No. 5 to No. 10 in the D3football.com Top 25 poll.
Hartwick now goes to No. 20 Alfred to face the Saxons in a matchup of conference unbeatens on Saturday.
“That’s a huge one,” Carr told The Daily Star. “Alfred’s another nationally ranked team, and this will affect the top of the Empire 8. There are a lot of implications. Rankings don’t mean anything to me, they really don’t. We’ve got a big game coming up against Alfred, and at the end of the season, we’ll see how things stand.”
Great performances
For an upset, it can’t just be the offense who has to step up. The defense has to do its job too, and senior linebacker Joe Flaherty led Hartwick with a team-high 12 tackles, 10 of them solo and got his first sack of the season. He leads the Hawks with 42 total tackles in four games.
Alfred sophomore running back Vinson Hendrix is becoming a staple in this part of the column and I’m sure that will continue for the next two years. Hendrix rushed for 108 yards and two touchdowns against Norwich, his fourth 100-yard game in the Saxons four games this season.
Will he keep his unblemished record going against Hartwick?
• In the Atlantic Coast Football Conference, Salisbury backed up its 4-0 record with a 62-14 thrashing of Newport News. The Sea Gulls racked up a season-high in total offense with 569 yards, 387 on the ground.
Jamar Garner ran for 105 yards and two touchdowns on only 10 carries.
Since the ACFC is not a conference with an automatic qualifier for the playoffs, Salisbury’s start has them in prime position to get a Pool B bid, but they still have to face off against Wesley in the second to last week of the season.
The Sea Gulls have not scored fewer than 35 points this season and have scored 43 points per game for coach Sherman Wood.
• Wesley shut out the independent Huntingdon (Ala.) Hawks 28-0 in Dover, Del. The Wolverines held the Hawks to 108 yards of total offense, including -2 yards rushing.
Bryan Robinson, the Wolverines All-American defensive end, had nine total tackles, including five for loss and two sacks. Huntingdon quarterback Justin Ridgeway was sacked five times, and the Wolverines made 19 tackles behind the line of scrimmage.
It was a terrific defensive performance from one of the better teams nationally. The Wolverines get into ACFC play this week against Frostburg State.
• Cortland State beat William Paterson in an NJAC matchup 42-0. Cortland quarterback Ray Miles threw for 226 yards and three touchdowns and the Cortland defense held the Pioneers to 108 yards of total offense. They also had seven sacks and didn’t allow William Paterson to advance past the Red Dragons’ 40-yard line.
Cortland senior linebacker Kyle Pierce had 11 tackles and one sack in the shutout.
The last time Cortland threw a shutout? Against the Pioneers in 2005, a 31-0 blanking.
Record-breakers/milestones
Alfred senior quarterback Paul Keeley had another terrific day under center for the Saxons, throwing for 290 yards while completing 23-of-28 passing in a 45-21 win over Empire 8 opponent Norwich. With that performance, Keeley set the Alfred school record for career passing yards with 5,772 -- breaking the record of 5,712 set by 1984 Alfred graduate Glenn Law.
Rochester senior Matt Bielecki, who was featured last week in this column, rushed for 186 yards on 30 carries against St. Lawrence, breaking the all-time record for carries and rushing yards at the school. Bielecki now has 3,509 yards, breaking the record of 3,422 yards set by Jeremy Hurd from 1989 to 1993, and has an outside chance at 4,000 yards, which would put him in the top echelon, at least statistically, of all-time rushers in Division III. Tom Arcidiacono’s 4,919 yards for Union from 2003-06 is 16th in Division III history and the highest among schools currently covered by Around the East.
Ithaca’s Dan Juvan threw an 88-yard touchdown pass to Kyle Crandall on Saturday against Brockport State, which is the longest touchdowns pass ever in the illustrious history of the Bomber football program.
Springfield senior defensive back Joe Harasymiak had two interceptions against Utica, giving his 14 in his long career. The Pride beat Utica at the Pioneers homecoming, 49-12.
Brockport State senior defensive end Dale Buck had 16 tackles, including one for loss and one sack in a losing effort against Ithaca. The sack moved Buck up to fifth all-time on the Brockport sacks record list.
Cortland senior kicker Matthew Mintz was perfect on all six of his point after attempts in a 42-0 win over William Paterson. The six PATs give him 64 straight made in his career, just three shy of the Cortland school record of 67 set by George Oostmeyer from 2000-2002.
Doing it all
Hobart’s Andrew Strom had 365 yards of total offense in the Statesmen’s 45-35 win over Worcester Polytech. He completed 25 of 37 passes for 285 yards and three touchdowns, and he also ran for 80 yards against a pretty good WPI defense.
And speaking of WPI ...
Despite the loss, I still think the Engineers are for real. We’ll see if that’s true in the next three weeks as WPI hits the gauntlet of the Liberty League schedule with games against Union in Schenectady, at Rochester and against RPI.
I bet you didn’t pick this
Who picked at the beginning of the season that the Week 6 game between Alfred and Hartwick would have been a game between conference leaders and to determine the leader of the Empire 8 with only a couple of weeks to go?
OK, Alfred and Hartwick fans can put their hands down.
Personally, I think it’s great for Division III football. It shows that any team can be beaten on any given week and that you never know what will happen from week to week.
Home sweet home
After four straight games on the road, Springfield comes home this weekend to play Husson on the newly-surfaced Benedum Field, which was redone over the summer. The Pride started the season 2-2, with wins over Union and Utica during their extended road trip.
A team that was peering over the edge and fell flat on its face
Montclair State. Arguably the best team in the East after wins over ranked teams Wesley, Springfield and Wilkes, the RedHawks were riding a high going headlong into New Jersey Athletic Conference competition, and what happens? They lose to The College of New Jersey, 19-9. That thud you hear is the confidence of the RedHawks. With Cortland State and Rowan continuing their good play, it’ll be tough for Montclair to get back into the race, but they can start by beating Buffalo State and Kean in the next two weeks and see what happens when they actually face Cortland and Rowan head-to-head.
A question that needs to be answered
Will anyone from the East Region step up and be that dominant team? Right now, the parity is terrific, but parity’s not going to get it done against the Mount Union and UW-Whitewaters of the world.
Games of the week
The College of New Jersey at Rowan: Two of the NJAC’s top half face off Friday night at Rowan.
Cortland State at Kean: Which Kean will show up against the Red Dragons -- The one that rolled the Merchant Marine Academy and Morrisville or the one who were thoroughly beaten by the MAC’s Albright and conference rival Buffalo State? A plus with this game -- it’s the D3Cast/D3football Game of the Week.
East Region Top 10
I said last week that St. John Fisher would stay on top until they were beaten. Saturday night, that happened, so the top 10 is all jumbled this time.
1. RPI
2. Alfred
3. Wesley
4. Rowan
5. Salisbury
6. St. John Fisher
7. Hobart
8. New Jersey
9. Hartwick
10. Cortland State
I put in Hartwick at No. 9 after the two upsets, but they need to show me something against Alfred to stay in that spot.