BELTON, Texas – With repeated Saturday weather delays making this NCAA Division III playoff game the longest contest in each schools' football history, the Texas Lutheran Bulldogs put together a Sunday upset bid of No. 2-ranked Mary Hardin-Baylor that fell seven points short.
TLU, 17th-ranked in the latest AFCA Coaches' Poll and playing in its first-ever NCAA Division III playoff game, dropped a 27-20 decision to the Cru at UMHB's Crusader Stadium.
"I'm real proud of our kids," said Danny Padron, TLU's head coach. "They played hard. It was the kind of game we wanted to play. You know, Mary Hardin-Baylor is a great football program – great football team with great coaches. We were real proud of our defense. They did a great job of slowing them down and our offense kept the ball from them."
"We made some mistakes, and that's something you can't do against a good team."
Counting the repeated weather delays Saturday and the re-start on Sunday, the game lasted 25 hours, 39 minutes.
"I really wish we could have played last night," said Padron. "I felt like we had the momentum. They had a night to think about what they had to do, and they made some adjustments. (UMHB) did some good things."
"When you can compete with an elite program like this, you're looking like you can compete like that for the next five weeks."
TLU, the back-to-back champions of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, ends its 2014 season at 9-2 overall. Both losses came against UMHB.
UMHB, champions of the American Southwest Conference, advances to play Linfield College (Ore.) in next week's second round of the NCAA playoffs. UMHB will host Linfield in Crusader Stadium at noon Saturday.
The Bulldogs cut the UMHB lead to 27-20 with 1:36 to play in the game with a Trenton White (Sachse/Sachse) five-yard TD pass to senior receiver Colby Ginn (Dickinson/Dickinson). The subsequent TLU onside kick was touched illegally by TLU, giving UMHB the ball in TLU territory.
The Bulldogs forced a UMHB punt and drove to the Cru 31 with three seconds remaining on the game clock. White hit Caleb Oliver for 19 yards and 16 yards to give the Bulldogs one final chance.
White's desperation pass as time expired was intercepted in front of the UMHB goal line by Kris Brown.
The Bulldogs' game plan of keeping the ball away from the UMHB offense nearly worked. TLU lost to UMHB 72-16 on Oct. 25 of this year in TLU's Bulldog Stadium.
In the second meeting, TLU dominated time of possession and total plays. The Bulldogs ran 99 plays to 35 for UMHB. The TLU time of possession hit 48:22. UMHB held the ball on offense for just 11:38.
Sophomore linebacker Darian Candler (Humble/Atascocita) led the Bulldog defense with eight total tackles, including four tackles for loss (27 yards in losses). Senior defensive end Bryan Doolittle (Houston/Langham Creek) collected a sack of four yards.
TLU's playoff-game strategy relied heavily on the 5-4, 150-pound frame of sophomore running back Marquis Barrolle (DIII's third-leading rusher), the decision-making of White, and the power of a veteran offensive line, led by senior right guard Kendall Wilkerson (Highlands/Goose Creek Memorial) and senior left tackle Matt Hochstrasser (Houston/Cypress Falls).
Barrolle (Ingleside/Ingleside) broke his own school record for carries (46) with a whopping 50 against the Cru. He set a new SCAC record for most carries in a game.
Barrolle gained 224 rushing yards against a defense that came into the game allowing only 84 rushing yards total per game (14th in NCAA DIII).
"Coming into this game, I knew it would be like the Hardin-Simmons game we played, where we were just trying to get four yards every carry."
Barrolle had 46 carries for 218 yards in that early-season road win over Hardin-Simmons.
The SCAC Offensive Player-of-the-Year, Barrolle ended the year with a TLU school-record 297 carries for a school-record 1,792 yards in 11 games. He averaged 6.0 yards per carry and 162.9 yards a game, and he scored 14 touchdowns.
Against UMHB, TLU rushed for 308 yards, with White adding 67 on 12 carries. White also threw for 144 yards (with two scores and two interceptions).
TLU finished the day with 452 yards of total offense to 284 for UMHB.
The Cru capitalized on a White interception early in the fourth quarter. The Pierce Thedford pick led to a 30-yard TD drive, capped by a Duane Thompson 3-yard scoring run.
Kamray Runnels hurt TLU with a third-quarter punt return of 65 yards for a score. Runnels scored early in the second quarter Saturday on a 33-yard pass play from Zach Anderson.
The TLU-UMHB game re-started at 11:30 a.m. Sunday following a weather postponement that was called at 9:41 p.m. Saturday. Heavy rain and lightning in Belton prevented the continuation and completion of the game Saturday.
UMHB went home Saturday night with a 14-10 lead with played stopped at the 8:40 mark of the second quarter. TLU re-started at the UMHB 29, 1st and 10, when play resumed.
On the drive re-start, the Bulldogs settled for a 45-yard field goal attempt from Tyler Brandenburg (Spring/Concordia Lutheran). The kick was short.
In the first half action Saturday, TLU collected a 40-yard TD pass from White to Caleb Oliver and a 39-yard Brandenburg field goal.
Brandenburg scored 101 points in 2014 to set the new TLU school record for points in a season (eclipsing the 98 scored by David Wehmeyer in 1971). Brandenburg scored eight on Saturday/Sunday versus UMHB.
In Saturday's portion of the contest, UMHB's Wykeyhe Walker capped a two-play, 76-yard drive with a 73-yard TD catch.
TLU put together a drive just before the first half that stalled at the UMHB 13 and ended in a missed 30-yard field goal from Brandenburg.
Barrolle rushed 31 times for 144 yards in the first half.
At the half, TLU out-gained UMHB 247 to 178 and held the ball for 25:01 to just 4:59 for UMHB.
Fourteen TLU seniors played in their final collegiate games. TLU's loss was just is third in the last 21 games.