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Huskies get some big payback
By Matt Janda
Published:
Monday, November 4, 2002
Media Credit: Adam Masloski
Mike Peterson (39) and Chuck Kruckman (4) stuff Nebraska-Omaha�s James Johnson (30). The Huskies defense stifled the Maverick rushing attack on way to a 47-19 victory.
Media Credit: Adam Masloski
Matt Birkel breaks away from the University of Nebraska-Omaha�s defense Saturday. Birkel ran his way to a career high of 236 yards rushing.
The football Huskies came into Saturday looking merely to rebound from their most disappointing performance of the season.
Rebound, they did. Several SCSU offensive players had their best collegiate games as the Huskies racked up a school single-game record for total yardage (686), and the Huskies matched their season-high point total in a 47-19 demolishing of the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
Junior quarterback Keith Heckendorf matched his own single-game passing yardage mark (369) and threw four more touchdowns, while freshman running back Matt Birkel carried the ball 28 times for 243 yards. Senior tight end Matt Huebner had six catches for 130 yards and a touchdown, readily giving out piggy-back rides to UNO defenders, while senior wide receiver Ben Nelson continued his quest to become the best Husky receiver ever, adding 148 yards and two touchdowns to his totals including an electric 77-yard bomb from Heckendorf.
"Coach (Paul) Rudolph put us in a lot of good formations and we went after their weaknesses like we usually do," Nelson said. "This week, Keith didn't get touched all day and we were able to run the ball for I don't know how many yards. So our O-line did a great job handling them and Keith was able to step back and take his time. If he can do that, he find anyone."
The real reason the Huskies dominated the Mavericks is simple- they took Omaha's best weapons away. Star running back James E. Johnson, who had three consecutive 100-yard rushing games entering the game, was held to 28 yards on 10 carries and the Mavs' top-ranked rushing attack was held to a season-low 57 yards.
"That was the number-one emphasis this week," said junior linebacker Shane Rohman, who registered seven tackles. "(UNO had) the number-one rushing offense and no one's been able to stop them, but we have a pretty good rushing defense, so it was kind of a good matchup. The game plan was just to stop them from running the ball and get them to pass it. Once we got them out of their run mode, we were able to win the game."
The Huskies forced Mavs' quarterback Brian Masek to try to beat them with his arm and he did well, passing for 297 yards and three scores, but the Huskies forced him to go away from his best receiver most of the game. Ryan Krause had only 85 yards receiving, but had two of the Mavs' touchdowns.
The game started ominously, as running back Brian Olson fumbled the opening kickoff and Omaha recovered it on the SCSU 20. They scored on their first play, a 20-yard crossing route to tight end Andy Damkroger, his only catch of the game. The extra point kick was an ominous sign of things to come as Troy Severson, one of the better kickers in Division II football, missed wide left, the first of four missed extra points on the day.
Then the Huskies went to work. After completing a pass to Huebner to open the SCSU offense, Heckendorf handed off to Birkel, who took it off right tackle and through the UNO secondary and to the house for a 42-yard touchdown.
After adding a 22-yard Nick Orndorff field goal on their next drive, the Huskies forced a UNO punt which was downed at the SCSU 1-yard line. After a Heckendorf sneak, Birkel ripped off another long run, this time a 66-yarder down to the Mavs' 30. Three plays later, Heckendorf found Huebner wide open in the end zone for a 24-yard touchdown. Birkel, who was playing with a rib injury, was sore again after the game, but he was healthy enough to run for 123 yards in the first period alone.
"I feel pretty good, but that first quarter felt like a whole game," he said.
The Mavs answered, as Masek completed two 35-yard passes on the next drive, the second a touchdown to Krause, which pulled UNO to 16-13. But the Huskies would have no more thoughts of a tight game after that.
On the next possession, Heckendorf threw an 18-yard strike to a cutting Ryan Koch, who strode untouched into the end zone for a score and Shaun Braunagle added a 22-yard field goal just before the half.
On the Huskies' first second-half drive, Nelson began to work his magic. Though he had 18 touchdowns prior to the game, most of them had come from 25 yards and closer. But on this play, the all-world wideout was thinking home run from the snap.
"They came up and we were in a formation where they had a bigger safety on me," he said. "The one time they didn't hold me, I was able to get free. Keith put nice air under it and I was able to run under it."
Nelson caught the ball and was gone, 77 yards for the score, which turned out to be the back-breaker for the Mavericks. Nelson added another touchdown, this time from 20 yards, in the fourth quarter, giving him 20 on the season and 15 in the NCC, a conference record. The score also gave Heckendorf a tie for most touchdown passes in an NCC season with 22.
It's fair to say there was some measure of satisfaction attached to the win. UNO had terrorized the Huskies over the last two seasons, winning both games by a combined 81-0 tally. The Mavericks were frustrated all day and showed it, committing 18 penalties for 158 yards, three times their rushing total.
"That's what's satisfying about it," Rohman said. "We've gone down there the last two years and gotten beat pretty big by them, so yeah, this was definitely a game I wanted to win and I wanted to win big."
The sentiment echoed throughout the Husky camp.
"You could tell they took this one kind of hard," Nelson said. "They had a lot of personal fouls- they don't like losing a lot. Now they've got a seven-hour bus ride to think about this one."
As all the Huskies' games are now considered must-win, the team doesn't have to look far for motivation anymore. But they got something else they were looking for.
"We probably can't win the league now, with the UNC situation (they defeated North Dakota State 29-7 to clinch no less than a share of the NCC title), but we can finish second. Right now, that would be a great accomplishment for this football team," said SCSU head coach Randy Hedberg. "One of the things we talked about in the preseason was that we needed to enter the upper half of the league, which has traditionally been UNO, North Dakota State, North Dakota and Northern Colorado. Now we've beaten two of those three teams and we've got a chance to get a third victory in another two weeks (at NDSU)."
