Late Score Sends Tech Past Eagles, 17-14
September 24, 2005

Complete Box Score

If you’re going to restore furniture, know going into it that you’ll need plenty of polish, elbow grease, patience and attention to detail.

It’s a football program, not a chest of drawers, that Ashland University head coach Lee Owens is trying to re-finish. Once his team gets better at finishing, a big part of his re-finishing job will be complete.

For the second consecutive Saturday, Ashland was leading a nationally-ranked and undefeated team in the fourth quarter. A week ago, AU was in front in the final frame against Grand Valley State, now No. 1 in the nation, before falling, 14-10. This week (Sept. 24), on the road in Houghton, MI, AU saw a 14-10 advantage evaporate in the game’s final minutes and turn into a 17-14 victory for 15th-ranked Michigan Tech.

“It’s hard to swallow, this game right here” said senior safety Devin Conwell. “But it’s over, now we have to get ready for next week. We’re one big play away from 5-0. It’s a game of inches.”

Ashland is 3-2, 2-2 in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Michigan Tech, which has won 13 of its last 15 games, is 4-0 overall and in the league.

The Huskies grabbed this win with 6:20 left in regulation when tailback Daryl Graham followed center Kurt Troutman into the end zone on a pitch to the right from three yards out. Ashland got the ball back one more time and moved from its own 18 to its own 46. But a failure to convert a third-and-one play squashed that series and forced a punt.

Tech got the ball with 3:41 to play and never relinquished the pigskin, running out the clock while moving from its own 27 to the AU 44. Running back Lee Marana, an All-America and Harlon Hill candidate, carried six times in that sequence and gained 34 yards. His biggest contribution came on a third-and-six play when he broke free for 16 yards. That kept the drive alive and killed any Ashland comeback hopes.

“They made the plays at the end,” sighed Owens. “Same thing that happened last week.”

So true. There wasn’t much to separate these two teams, except the capacity to make plays at critical junctures. MTU had 17 first downs, Ashland 14. The Huskies rushed for 144 yards and passed for 177. AU gained 110 yards on the ground and threw for 151. In total offense, Tech led, 321-261. But in game-changing plays Tech, like Grand Valley State the week before, definitely had the upper hand.

“I think it can come down to a battle of wills,” Owens said. “You have to put your will on the opponent, like their running back did. Somehow, take the game over. Someone has to take over.”

“Typically, when you have a great, close football game it comes down to one or two plays,” said Michigan Tech head coach Bernie Anderson. “We had to get into the end zone and we had to stop them. It came down to two series.”

The seven-play, 54-yard drive that ended with Graham’s go-ahead score had another game-changing play. On a second-and-eight play from the Ashland 41, the Huskies relied on some subterfuge. What started out as a reverse became a pass from wide receiver Brad Ruhanen to wideout Brian Janeshek. Ruhanen took a pitch and looked like he was going to complete a reverse when he stopped and threw to Janeshek, who had slipped past the AU defense. The play covered 34 yards and put Tech at the AU7. Three plays later, Graham scored.

“It came down to several players executing,” said Anderson. “Our wide receiver had to sell the reverse, Ruhanen had to sell the run. That enabled us to get our No. 1 man just behind their defensive back. You run that one or two times a season. Ruhanen did a good job selling it to make the corner bite.”

“Teams are trying to take advantage of our aggressiveness on defense,” said Owens. “We just have to be smart enough to stay deep. We’re in deep thirds, there’s no reason for them to cheat up. It’s a shame as well as we played defensively, but you have a couple of plays.”

Ashland did play well defensively. Fueled by a rambunctious Homecoming crowd, Tech scored first, getting a field goal from Grant Botz with 5:22 left in the first quarter. The Huskies made it 10-0 with 14:11 left in the first half when Janeshek hauled in a 34-yard pass from freshman quarterback Drew Schaft. After that, the Eagles stiffened and that resistance got the Eagles back in the game.

“We started kind of flat,” admitted Conwell. “We didn’t play well in the first quarter and we had a big breakdown in the fourth.”

However, in the second and third quarters, and late into the final frame, Tech couldn’t do much offensively. Marana, who would finish with 108 yards on 25 carries, struggled to break free. A defense spearheaded by linebackers Brady Miller (16 tackles, three solo), Jeremy Crabtree (12 tackles, two sacks) and Allen Lattimore (12 tackles, three solo) filled the running lanes and slowed down the GLIAC’s best rushing offense (293.3 ypg.).

Offensively, most of the AU highlights were produced by senior wide receiver Dalorean White. He had eight catches for 110 yards. White had several acrobatic catches and caught a 42-yard touchdown pass from junior quarterback Nick Strance (16-24, 151 yards) with 3:22 left in the first half to slice the MTU lead to 10-7.

“Skip’s a great athlete, he had a great game,” offered Strance. “He got opportunities against a great defense. We need to expand those more in the future.”

Ashland took the lead when Strance found sophomore wide receiver David Ziegelhofer with a 7-yard scoring pass with 5:07 remaining in the third quarter. Heath Studer added the extra point after both touchdowns.

Yet even with those pass plays, the Eagles struggled to find consistency on offense. Senior tailback Jason Schwalm rushed for 57 yards on 17 carries and his understudy, sophomore Jon Schroeder, added 47 yards on 11 trips, but the Eagles never could wrestle complete control of the game away from Tech.

“We were grab-bagging it on offense,” summarized Owens.

Still, to come from 10 points behind, against a nationally-ranked team, on the road, says something about the Eagles’ progress. But for those on the field, that’s no consolation.

“We just need to score,” said senior offensive lineman Justin Dorr. “We need to get everybody together on one page. We need to find a way in the fourth quarter. We had to put a drive together to win it.”