University Chronicle Extras:
Movies
|
Student Resources
|
Vote 04
|
Career
|
Scholarships
|
Travel
|
GradZone
News
Briefly
Calendar of Events
Commentary
Opinions
Sports
Diversions
World News
Classifieds
Login
Letter Submission
Search
Archive
Publishing Policy
Mail Subscriptions
St. Cloud State University
College Publisher
Home
>
Sports
Small start, big finish
By Matt Janda
Published:
Monday, September 30, 2002
Media Credit: Adam Masloski
The Huskies celebrate after a sack in the second half of Saturday’s win. The play knocked the Jackrabbits far enough back so that the following field goal attempt came up short. The defense played well enough to hold off a threatening last minute drive by the Jackrabbits and go to 4-0 in the process.
Media Credit: Adam Masloski
Tight end Matt Huebner takes a South Dakota State player for a ride Saturday. Huebner helped the offense drive their way to a 28-24 win over the visiting Jackrabbits.
The Huskies defense rallied from an extremely slow start and helped the offense overcome an early 14-0 lead as SCSU used all of their weapons and more to defeat the South Dakota State Jackrabbits Saturday at Selke Field.
A 21-21 first half turned into a defensive battle and the Huskies defensive line came up huge. Leading 28-24 with less than a minute remaining, SCSU defensive end Bryan Cook buried Jacks’ quarterback Dan Fjeldheim in the backfield on fourth down to secure the Husky victory. It put an end to Fjeldheim’s career-best passing effort, where he passed for 460 yards and two touchdowns.
“We were told he had improved,” Cook said. “After we played them last year, he improved the whole season and we knew coming into the game that he’s a good quarterback and we really gotta’ pressure him.”
Things looked awful for the Huskies early on. The Jacks capitalized on the Huskies near-ritualistic slow start on defense by heading downfield, completing a 43-yard pass to receiver Jeff Hesse. With the defense on their heels, the Jacks punched it in three plays later for a 7-0 lead.
After wideout Ryan Koch fumbled on the Huskies second play, the Jacks scored again and led 14-0 after less than two minutes of football. The Jacks, who looked bigger and faster than the Huskies at most positions, were in complete control of the game.
“Everyone knows we’ve been sluggish coming out in the first quarter,” Cook said. “Our defensive philosophy is you can give up the yards, but you can’t give up the points. We let our offense take it away.”
“It was kind of a shock, but we knew our offense would score points,” said Huskies quarterback Keith Heckendorf. “We knew our defense would eventually hold them down and keep them out of the end zone. We just knew to keep doing the things that got us here, just doing the basic things we’ve done in the past.”
Those things included an equal mix of running and passing, as the Huskies rushed Josh Williams three times and connected downfield to Ed DeShazer to get them in scoring position. The Huskies got a huge lift on a broken play, when Heckendorf was hit from behind and fumble. Tackle Joe Keller picked up the fumble and rumbled 19 yards for the first SCSU score.
“Our thing is, we want to see how long teams can hang with us,” Keller said. “We know our offense is high-powered, we know our defense can step it up. We know it’s going to happen. We knew it was a matter of time before our offense clicked.”
Things went south for the Huskies again, however, before the first quarter ended. After Heckendorf was intercepted, the Jacks passed their way down the field and Fjeldheim found freshmen receiver Josh Davis, who had 11 catches for 155 yards, for his second touchdown.
Midway through the second quarter, the Huskies hit paydirt again, this time on a four-yard touchdown pass from Heckendorf to wideout Ben Nelson.
The star wideout had a ho-hum day with eight catches for 103 yards and one score.
After SCSU defensive lineman Nick Peterson recovered a Davis fumble, the Huskies were able score again when Heckendorf found tight end Eric Earle uncovered in the end zone, capping an impressive comeback and tying the game at 21.
“I really felt that we had momentum going in (to the half), coming back from a 14-0 and 21-7 deficit and tying the game,” Huskies head coach Randy Hedberg said. “I really felt comfortable at halftime from that standpoint, but I knew we’d have to score.”
If that is how the game had to go, the Huskies would have been just fine with that, but something better happened to them.
SCSU opened the second half with an impressive 13 play, 74-yard drive that ate up over five minutes of clock time, finished off by a spectacular one-handed catch by Ryan Koch. From there the defense found another gear. The defensive line harassed Fjeldheim and the secondary kept receivers that appeared to be running free from getting to the end zone.
The Jacks got a 35-yard field goal from kicker Keith Witt to make it 28-24 with just under 10 minutes to play, setting the stage for a memorable finish.
With 1:35 to play, Fjeldheim scrambled for 14 yards on fourth down to give the Jacks the first inside the SCSU 30 yard line. The defense came up with its best effort of the year, as junior linebacker Chris Schmitz sacked Fjeldheim and caused a fumble that SDSU recovered. Defensive tackle Jeremy Pilarski hurried Fjeldheim into a bad pass on the second play and safety Matt Nicholson deflected the next pass to set up Cook’s sack on the Jacks’ final play.
“I told our defense after the game that I was so proud of the way they played, the character they showed after having some bad things happen to them early in the game,” Hedberg said. “We were down 14 points after six plays, but the defense hung in there. I’m extremely proud of the way they played and how hard they played.”
In addition to a great defensive effort, the Huskies got their most well-rounded offensive game of the year. Heckendorf completed passes to nine different receivers and SCSU ran for 80 yards. The offense was able to adjust to some difficult situations early on, and got what they were looking for later in the game.
“We had a good game plan coming in. We had some wide receivers step up today and take some of the pressure off of Ben. That’s what we need this year, and what we’re going to continue to need down the road,” Heckendorf said. “We were just taking what they gave us. They played man coverage (in the first half) and were blitzing, so we had to go over the top. In the second half they started playing more zone and dropping guys, so we knew we could come underneath.”
The win moves the Huskies to 4-0 for the first time since 1988, the year before they won their only NCC championship. It did not come without a price however. Junior center Andy Kaczor, who missed most of last season due to a diabetes-related illness, suffered a left knee injury that appeared fairly serious. Hedberg said that the injury looks to be an MCL tear and possibly an ACL tear, meaning that Kaczor will almost certainly miss most of the rest of the season, if not all of it. It is a huge blow to an offensive line that is just beginning to play very well together. Kaczor will have an MRI on the knee.
“Our O-line has done a great job all year and they continue to do a great job,” Heckendorf said. “We had some injuries on the line today and people stepped up and filled the holes for us. We had to. You can’t throw, and you can’t run the ball without the big boys in front leading the way for you.”
