If what happened in week 11's 48-14 loss to California is the future of Millersville football, get excited. In another example of "the score does not dictate the game," the Marauders put on an entertaining show for their loyal fans on Saturday, putting a serious scare into the Vulcans, who were picked as a West favorite.
Congratulations to a marvelous bookend to senior RB Ian Sadon's Millersville career. Sadon rushed for 187 yards, a career high, as well as eclipsed 1,000 yards in a season early in the third quarter. Sadon scored one of two Millersville touchdowns in his final game.
Senior LB Jordan Rigby also had a rather nice performance, totaling 12 tackles, including 1.5 tackles for a loss for seven total yards. Rigby will also end his Millersville career on a high note.
Now, to the game.
California scored on their first possession. Responding to that score took 10 plays and 75 yards, culminating in an entertaining moment. Saturday's referees used a very strange arm position to call for second down, and touchdown. The crowd, as well as the marching band (and yours truly) were swayed by this strange arm signal that looked eerily similar to touchdown.
One play later, Sadon rushed it into the end zone in a way we've all seen so many times this year.
The Vulcans scored twice more and added a field goal from Cody Nuzzo to take a 24-7 lead at the half. More of the same? Not so.
Corey Unger's one yard run cut the deficit to 10 early in the second half. Fans remained raucous as head coach Greg Breitbach's adage came to life—give yourself a chance to win in the fourth quarter. It seemed so tangible at that time. Millersville came alive. Chryst Field rocked.
Evan Stahl could have cut the lead to 7 points after a 32 yard fumble recovery by Rasheed Johnson, but failed to stick the 24 yard field goal due to excellent pressure and an ill-timed wind gust. Millersville also had the ball deep in California territory after a California punt.
However, California's Jordan Bowman, who ended up with PSAC West Defensive Player of the Week honors, recovered an ill-fated handoff and returned a fumble 80 yards for a touchdown. Unger also threw an interception to Dewey McDonald just a minute later whose 20 yard return extended California's once-tense lead to 41-14.
Nick Grissom added one more score late to make it 48-14, and thus, the game.
Turnovers kill. All three interceptions and the one fumble on Saturday resulted in points. In fact, 24 of California's 48 points came from turnovers. Those get cleaned up, and the game looks so much different. Every Millersville turnover in this game, against East Stroudsburg, Kutztown and Lock Haven except for one, resulted in points.
You erase those points, and again, each game looks different. Turnovers are inevitable, that's just football, but multiple interceptions and fumbles taken for points every time will destroy chances to win. They kill momentum. No doubt over the final games this season was this more evident. Opponents scored 83 total points off of turnovers in the last four weeks.
Millersville ended the season with 17 interceptions and 32 fumbles, of which 15 were lost to the opposition. The next post will take a look at the numbers and the season recap. They may not be pretty numbers, but improvement takes time. To say no strides were taken this year would be foolhardy. Many strides occurred on Saturday.
On a more positive note, Millersville's offensive line played exceptionally well on Saturday. 224 of Millersville's 289 total yards of offense came on the ground. 43 of the rest of those yards came on a spectacular pitch and catch to David Coates for a huge gain. If that offensive line can continue to develop under Jeff Richter, life will be much easier for the offense as a whole.
California gained 369 total yards with 233 coming through the air. Cal totaled 106 yards off of two turnover returns which may not count against the total yards gained, but they sure help in the long run. Again, clean them up, the score comes down considerably. It just goes to show that Breitbach's insistence on clean football will make a gargantuan difference in these tightly contested games in the PSAC.
My thanks and gratitude go out to the entire football coaching staff. It was a whirlwind of change for many of them, and for them to handle this situation with so much grace and professionalism meant a ton towards presenting a quality broadcast on MSBN.
The Marauder Touchdown Club has raised over $16,000 for operational costs. The Marauder Scholar Program put forth over 500 hours of community service. The amount of change in just seven short months has been remarkable. Here's to the future.
The season recap post will be coming likely next week. Until then.
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