Footbal upsets Stags in Rain-Soaked Homecoming
By Joey Richards
Sports Writer

Battling a torrential downpour and a field littered with mud puddles, the Pomona-Pitzer football team upset rival Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 12-7 in Saturday’s homecoming clash and the Sagehens’ final game of the season.

The victory boosts the Sagehens’ final record to 4-4, a marked improvement from last year, when the team finished 2-6. More importantly, P-P spoiled CMS’s perfect season, dropping them to 7-1, and all but ruined the Stags’ chances of post-season play.

“The victory is huge for the program. First of all, we didn’t want to be a part of CMS’s playoff trail. Secondly, we thought we were as good or better than they were when everyone was healthy and playing. Third, it supplies a great boost to our recruiting capabilities. And lastly, it sends us into the off-season with more motivation to get ready for next season,” said head coach Roger Caron.

Pomona-Pitzer’s victory breaks a two-game skid to their rivals. However, the ‘Hens have now won six of their last eight match-ups with CMS.

In the game, the main story was undoubtedly the rain, which didn’t relent the entire afternoon.

The downpour considerably slowed the offensive attacks of both teams. Because the passing game was virtually impossible to execute, each side almost exclusively ran the ball. Of CMS’s 66 total plays, 53 were rushes while 49 of P-P’s 55 plays were runs. Each team completed only one pass.

Unafraid of the other side’s respective passing attacks, each team stacked the line defensively to smother the running game. Thus, on the afternoon the two teams combined for a measly 391 yards.

Another effect of the rain was the high number of turnovers and botched plays by both teams. However, it seemed that Pomona-Pitzer had better prepared for these conditions. CMS turned the ball over eight times, while P-P had only three turnovers. Additionally, the Stags botched numerous center-quarterback exchanges, while the Hens fared considerably better in that category.

“Turnovers was the key stat of the game; plus they had a hard time with their quarterback-center exchange. We had practiced with a wet ball, but it’s impossible to prepare for those conditions,” said Caron.

Charging out of the gates from the opening kick, the Sagehens put the pressure on a stunned CMS team early.

On their second possession of the game, faced with a third down and ten on their own 32-yard line, the Sagehens jumped on the board. Running-back John Samples ’04, who had missed the previous game and a half due to injury, took the handoff and exploded through a hole on the left side of the line. From here, he outran the entire Stag secondary and found the endzone for the P-P touchdown and a 6-0 lead.

In the second quarter, the Sagehens again used a big play to expand their lead and work their rain-soaked, rowdy crowd into a frenzy.

Just inside CMS territory, quarterback Justin Fenchel ’06 threw a bomb down the right sideline for receiver Matthew Hermsen ’04. Fenchel underthrew the pass, but Hermsen quickly adjusted to the ball, made the grab, and then turned inside for a race to the endzone. When all was said and done, he was brought down just shy of the goal line for a 44-yard gain.

From here, Samples scored his second rushing touchdown of the game, this time from two yards out, giving the Hens a 12-0 lead.

.Just before halftime, P-P had another prime opportunity to expand its lead.

With less than 20 seconds remaining in the half, CMS was forced to punt from its own 15-yard line. However, looking for a punt-block, P-P brought all 11 to the line, leaving nobody back to receive. Feeling the pressure, CMS punter Zack Krelle (CMC) ’04 was unable to field a low snap and kicked the ball sideways out-of-bounds at the two-yard line to avoid a safety.

P-P had the ball at the CMS two-yard line with 12 seconds in the half and no time-outs left. Samples again got the ball and ran to the right side but was stopped on the one-yard line by a gang of Stag defenders and a giant puddle.

After one half of play, P-P led 12-0. The Sagehens thoroughly dominated the Stags for the first 30 minutes. At the half, P-P had 189 total yards compared to 38 for CMS, and, amazingly, had zero turnovers compared to two for the Stags. Also, Samples had 134 yards compared to only 21 for CMS’s feature back Ryan Gocong (CMC) ’03.

“We came out excited. We forced them to have to come back when it was so hard to move the ball in those conditions,” said Caron.

In the second half, the rain began to come down even harder, and P-P turned its attention to defense.

Exemplifying this is the coaching staff’s decision to kick-off to start the half, even though they had done so at the start of the first half. Conditions were so terrible that Caron and Co. believed they would be better suited to put the ball in CMS’s territory to pressure their offense rather than having to immediately put their own offense up against the weather deep in their own field.

The decision backfired however, as CMS returned the kickoff to their own 42-yard line and pinned P-P inside their own 20 with a punt.

Three plays later, the Hens fumbled the football and CMS recovered on the Pomona-Pitzer seven-yard line. The next play, Gocong scored a touchdown on a rush off left-tackle, making the score 12-7 with 11:32 remaining in the third quarter.

From there, defense took over, and neither team would score again. In fact, eight of the final 15 possessions of the ballgame were terminated with turnovers.

More than a handful of defenders rose to the occasion to have tremendous games for Pomona-Pitzer.

Defensive-back Matthew Waldeck ’06 led the team with nine tackles, and also had one interception and broke up another pass. Lineman Bob Boeche ’03 chipped in with eight tackles, three of them for losses, and also forced a fumble and broke up a pass. But perhaps the best performance was put in by defensive back Joey Cappola ’05. Cappola, playing in only his third game of the season due to injury, forced and recovered a fumble, intercepted a pass and broke up two other CMS passes.

Other Sagehens to recover fumbles were linebacker Daniel Gladwell ’06 and defensive back John Anderson ’05. Also intercepting Stag passes were linebacker Keegan Dresow ’06 and defensive back Shea Joachim ’03, who made perhaps the biggest defensive play of the game, picking off a CMS pass in Sagehen territory with 1:13 left in the game to seal the Hen victory.

“We are better than a .500 team. We realistically could have been 7-2 this season. Oberlin canceled on a game that would have been winnable; we also felt we should have beaten La Verne [lost 17-16 on September 9], and that we could have beaten Occidental if Samples was healthy [lost 24-21 on October 19],” said Caron.

Next year, P-P will join the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC). The Hens have been independent but have now raised their level of competition to compete with the six other SCIAC foes.

This year, in fact, the Hens battled five of the six SCIAC teams, going 2-3 with two close losses.

“To compete for a title our first year is going to be tough. We need more numbers and everyone is going to have to prepare and work hard and be energized to stick with the program. Hopefully we can keep the excitement [we have from the CMS win] going into the off-season and into next season,” said Caron.

Pomona-Pitzer’s victory over previously undefeated SCIAC opponent CMS should be a warning to the rest of the conference that these Hens will come to compete when next season rolls around.