By Jason Bowen
D3football.com

It is said that familiarity breeds contempt. If that is true, then the second round matchup between Wesley and Mary Hardin-Baylor maybe the most intense football game played in the Division III playoffs on Saturday.

"There is no question that this is a rivalry and there is no love lost between these two teams," Cru coach Pete Fredenburg said. "They have some great athletes and are really well-coached and we know that they will be ready to play. Last time they came to Belton, they embarrassed us, so I don't think our guys will have a problem getting ready to play."

So how do a team from Delaware and a team from Texas become rivals?

"It is interesting that two teams that are so far away, because of the playoffs, have the opportunity to play each other so many times," Wesley coach Mike Drass said. "They're the type of team that wants to pound you on the ground and then hit you with the home run ball. That hasn't changed.

"Their offensive line is the best we've seen. Defensively, they run better than anyone we've played."

They keep running into each other in the playoffs and over the last the past four seasons, these two teams have been as prolific as any on the Division III level, outside of Mount Union and defending national champion Wisconsin-Whitewater.

The two programs have combined to win the last four South Region championships. UMHB advanced to the 2004 Stagg Bowl, while each team has been eliminated by the UW-Warhawks in the semifinals the past three seasons.

The contest will mark the fourth straight year the teams have met all in the second round or later. The Wolverines won the first two meetings in 2005 (46-36) and 2006 (34-20), while the Crusaders broken through last season in Dover with a 27-10 win.

"We know them. They know us," said UMHB safety Derrick Williams, who leads the Crusaders in tackles (75) and interceptions (5). "It seems like they're in our conference now.

"It's like they're a conference team that we see over and over. It's a Texas-Delaware rivalry."

Though both teams started the season ranked in the top four in the country, both encountered some unexpected bumps on the road back to the playoffs this season. And in each case it was unexpected player who stepped in to lift the offense.

For Wesley, it was a change to sophomore quarterback Shane McSweeny, who replaced senior incumbent Jason Schatz in the third quarter of the Wolverines' 25-22 season opening loss to Delaware Valley. McSweeny drove the Wolverines to a late go-ahead score in the game before the Aggies pulled the upset, scoring a touchdown with 11 seconds left.

The moved surprised many, especially since Schatz had passed for more than 2,800 yards and 28 touchdowns the previous year and led Wesley all the way to the quarterfinals in his first season as a starter under center.

"It wasn't an easy choice," Drass said. "It was a situation at that time where Jason was struggling. He was struggling in practice. He was struggling in scrimmages. He was struggling throwing the football and being accurate.

"It was one of those things that I thought that he would play himself out of it. Anyone who was around the team at that time saw it. It was very strange because he had such success as the quarterback last year. He wasn't finding that same success throughout camp and even in the first game of the season. I had talked to Jason a week earlier and said 'look, if you struggle with efficiency we're going to play Shane some.' And Shane came in and did a pretty solid job. We sat down and looked at film and made a determination that the best thing for the team was to go with Shane. Sometimes you have to make decisions that are for the greater good, all coaches know that, but it doesn't make it any easier when a senior who's been a great player for you is relegated to being a back up."

McSweeny quickly earned the trust of his teammates through his proficient performance and hard-nosed play. The sophomore is currently ranked second in the country in passing efficiency, while completing 68.5 percent of his passes for 1,817 yards with 17 touchdowns and just two interceptions. He has added 304 rushing yards and three touchdowns too.

"In the beginning of the year, they knew I had the ability to play," McSweeny said. "But it helped having Jon (Lanouette), Larry (Beavers), all the running backs and a great line to lean on.

"I don't have to do as much to try to win the game because the pieces are there. They trusted me. There are no doubts."

At times this season McSweeny's play has also inspired his teammates.

"Anytime your quarterback is going to lower his head and run somebody over or make blocks it definitely fires you up." Wesley guard Evan Pritchett said. "We feel happy to have him back there and that he's going to do everything he can to move this team forward.

"He works his butt off at practice and come game day he's reckless. Sometimes, it's a little scary because you don't want him to get hurt."

Drass has tried to get his young quarterback to back off a bit but McSweeny has also impressed the Wesley staff with the way he prepares for the game.

"He's a student of the game," Drass added. "We have to kick him out of the office. He has a desire to be the best that he can be, to lead this team to be the best that we can be and help win us a championship. I think that comes through.

"His style of play is one where he's strong safety playing quarterback. He's going to run through that brick wall every time. We tell to slide or get out of bounds. We've tried. He won't. We told him and he said 'no, I can't do that.' He‘s 100% all-out player. He's never going to run out of bounds. That's just the way he is."

Since earning the starting job, McSweeny has led the Wolverines to nine straight victories and their fourth straight playoff appearance.

For Mary Hardin-Baylor, it was a an injury early in the season at the running back position to Quincy Daniels, who rushed for over 1500 yards last season, that started the Cru on a cycle of "going through running backs like underwear" as one message board post put it.

Daniels' backup, Baylor transfer Matt Hurst and currently the second leading rusher also went down for an extended period of time. As did the team's top deep threat in receiver Pi'Dadro Davis (nearly 30 yards per reception).

"The theme of this season was stepping up," Williams said of a team that had also lost a bunch of starters on offense from last season's regional champs. "When those injuries happened, that theme really came into affect especially at the running back position.

"With an All-American like Quincy Daniels going down that really hurt us. But after he got hurt, we had seven different players rush for 100 yards."

However, the offense suddenly lacked its normal explosiveness and though they continued to win their point production dipped too. Around the time that the 6-0 Crusaders suffered a disappointing loss on the road at NAIA Southern Oregon, the Crusaders turned to junior linebacker Bryson Tucker, at the time their leading tackler, to help fill their mangled running back position.

"Coach asked us as a group how we felt about it," Williams said. "It got pretty quiet, but we were like if it's going to help the team let's ride with it."

While his defensive mates where probably sad to see him move, Tucker had no doubts he could succeed.

"They asked me if I had played running back in the past," said Tucker, who has rushed for 454 yards and two touchdowns on just 69 carries since the switch. "I believe I can play any skill position on the field offense or defense. So when they asked me to move, it was a pretty easy conversion for me."

Tucker has posted two 100-yard games in four starts and is averaging 6.6 yards per carry. A quarterback in high school, the junior played a huge role in UMHB win over America Southwest rival Hardin Simmons last Saturday. Not only did he lead all rushers with 99 yards on 22 carries, his 91-yard kickoff return for a touchdown pulled the Cru even in the first quarter after the Tigers had put the first points of the day on the board.

Tucker also threw a touchdown pass to Ervin Johnson early in the fourth quarter that gave UMHB a 35-21 lead at the time. He has accounted for touchdowns in four different ways (rush, kickoff return, punt & pass) this season. He also still ranks as the Crusaders fourth leading tackler with 50 despite not playing their the past four weeks.

NOTES: Wolverine left tackle David Erdman will be the only player to started all four UMHB-Wesley games. The 6-foot-4, 321-pounder shared these thoughts on the contest.

"In a way it makes it like a regular season game. A lot of the time when you play a team in the playoffs that you have no idea about them, but for us and them for them, we've done this before and you know a lot of what everybody's going to do. It comes down to who is going to execute."

Wesley's Larry Beavers will return to the sight of perhaps the most explosive performance by a receiver ever seen the playoffs when he visits Tiger Field in Belton on Saturday. The senior caught six passes for 239 yards and four touchdowns in Wesley's 46-36 victory back in the second round of the 2005 playoffs. Beavers has six touchdown receptions this season and has run back four kickoffs and three punts for scores.

Both teams have owned the first half this season. The Crusaders have outscored opponents 270 to 85, while Wesley has outpaced opponents 235 to 19.