Football team goes 1-1 in their two past games
Inconsistent offense stumbles and shines versus two conference opponents
Carlos Millan
Issue date: 10/29/09 Section: Sports
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Muskies lost their first Northern Athletics Conference game of the season 41-32 Saturday afternoon.
The Muskie's eleven point halftime lead evaporated when Concordia Chicago scored 20 unanswered points, while holding the Muskie offense scoreless in the second half. This was a hard loss as it pushed the Muskies lower in the standings.
The Lakeland (2-4, 2-1 NAC) defense gave up 411 yards and five touchdowns to Concordia Chicago's (5-1, 2-1 NAC) quarterback Mike Marotta. Four out of the five touchdowns were of 20 or more yards.
The first half of the match consisted of Concordia's defensive miscues which helped the Muskies obtain a 32-21 halftime lead.
Sophomore running back Jeremy Williams, had the first touchdown of the game midway through the first half after a Concordia fumble gave the Muskies a short field.
After Concordia came back with a touchdown of their own, junior wide receiver Roberto Flores, ended a 57 yard drive with a one yard touchdown pass from junior quarterback Jake Dworak.
In the second quarter, the Muskie defense picked up its intensity as they had an interception from senior cornerback Brandon Wolff. Wolff returned the interception 41 yards before fumbling it at the goal line; luckily it was recovered by senior linebacker Jamie Schramm, in the end zone to give the Muskies a 25-14 lead.
Concordia then responded with a 58 yard drive of their own on the following possession.
With 22 seconds left in the first half, junior tight end Eric Zuelsdorf received an 18 yard pass from Dworak and took it down the middle of the field for a touchdown. This capped a great two- minute-drill drive to finish the half with a 32-21 lead.
The first half had Concordia committing five fumbles and losing two of them, while the third one was kicked out of the end zone for a Muskie safety.
In the second half, the turnover bug seemed to have bitten the Muskies, as they fumbled the football once and threw two interceptions.
"Bottom line, we didn't score in the second half," Lakeland head coach Kevin Doherty said. "That first drive after halftime was looking great before we had a breakdown in communication in the quarterback-center exchange, and after the turnover it all just seemed to snowball from there."
The third quarter fumble the Muskies committed eventually resulted as a touchdown for Concordia, which narrowed the lead to four points.
Concordia scored once more in the third quarter, and again late in the fourth quarter, to take the lead for good. The game ended when the Muskies threw their final interception and Concordia ran the clock down.
One interesting stat of this game was that each team was penalized for over 90 yards and a combined total of 23 penalties.
Even though the Muskie defense suffered from failing to stop the big plays, they did have three sacks to go with their lone interception.
This was a disappointing result for the Muskies as they came in with a great deal of momentum from last Saturday's win.
Even with the apparent loss of momentum, the Lakeland football team (3-4, 3-1 NAC) won an impressive 30-14 game versus Benedictine University on Oct. 24.
With this win the Muskies kept their NAC championship hopes alive as they kept pace with NAC leader Concordia Wisconsin (4-0 NAC).
This was a record-setting game as junior wide receiver Roberto Flores set a new Lakeland record for receiving yards in a game. Flores finished with 231 receiving yards on eight catches and three touchdowns. The previous school record for a single game was 197 yards by Seitu Smith on Oct. 22, 1994.
All of Flores' scores came in the first half as Flores helped build a 21-6 lead by halftime.
"The offensive line did a good job of picking up their blitzes well and gave (junior quarterback) Jake (Dworak) enough time to make the right reads," said Flores.
Dworak finished the game with 392 yards and four touchdowns going 16-36 in passing attempts; he also had three interceptions to go along with his three touchdowns.
Flores' first touchdown came early in the first quarter as he received an 81 yard pass from Dworak. His second score was much more impressive as he went up over the defender and coach Doherty said that Flores willed that touchdown.
Senior receiver Jake Heinemeyer also had a big game as he compiled 160 yards. This helped the Muskies gain 431 total yards for the game.
Heinemeyer also helped Flores in the passing game as the Muskies were going to two excellent receivers and the Benedict defense had a hard time focusing on a single reciever.
Similar to the offense's excellent performance, the Muskie defense did not stag behind. By the end of the third quarter, the defense held the Eagles to under 100 total yards.
The defense also had an impressive seven sacks in the game to go along with two interceptions. All seven sacks added for a total loss of 41 yards for the Eagles.
Doherty said, "Our defense played lights out…We were high energy the whole game. Our kids were really prepared well for this game."
The only negative seen in the game is that quarterback Dworak was sacked four times and the running game did not flourish as the passing game did.
Coach Doherty said, "They forced us to throw by taking our run game away."
This game proved that even if a team can take the running game out of the picture, the Muskie offense has so much confidence in their passing game that they can continue playing at a high level.
On another note, Flores was named the NAC Student Athlete of the Week for football for the week of Oct. 26. Flores earned the award after the 30-14 Benedictine victory where he caught eight passes for 231 yards and three first-half touchdowns.
"Roberto was very deserving of the award this week," Doherty said. "He's worked very hard at becoming a solid receiver and makes both the routine and hard plays. He gets better each week he's on the field."
Flores has gained over 100 yards in three games this season, is second in the NAC with 756 receiving yards, and has caught an NAC-best eight touchdown passes.
Join the Muskies on Halloween when they take on Maranatha Baptist in search for another victory at 1:00 p.m. at Taylor Field.
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