st. Paul, minn. -- the concordia university football team (2-3, 1-3 nsic, 0-2 nsic south) dropped their second straight game, a 42-21 loss to augustana college (3-2, 3-1 nsic, 1-0 nsic south) in front of 2,690 fans on homecoming at griffin stadium. But the biggest news came prior to the game, when phil fandrei presented the university with a check for five million dollars on behalf of sea foam sales company to be used for a new on-campus stadium, to be named sea foam stadium.
concordia dominated the first quarter, with junior mitch brecke (qb, plymouth, minn.) leading the team on a 15 play, 80 yard drive. Brecke concluded the drive with a one yard plunge through the line for his fourth rushing touchdown of the season. Concordia rushed seven times for 21 yards on the opening drive that lasted nearly half the quarter (7:27).
the key play on the drive was a fourth and 11 from the augie 23 yard line. Cu faked the field goal, with sophomore zach hovey (wr, champlin, minn.) completing a two yard pass to sophomore hayden vavra (rb, cambridge, minn.) near the sideline. But augie's andrew kiel was flagged for pass interference, giving concordia an automatic first down.
concordia scored quickly on their second drive early in the second quarter when brecke found senior tyrone ruffin (wr, plymouth, minn.) for a 64 yard scoring strike to cap a three play drive on a third and five play.
ruffin finished with seven receptions for 154 yards and two touchdowns. The school's all-time receiving touchdown leader now has 29 career receiving scores, six in five games in 2008.
concordia had an early time of possession advantage, doubling up the vikings (9:52 to 5:08) in the opening quarter.
that would flip on concordia as augustana took control of the game, scoring three straight touchdowns, two in the second quarter and the third in the third quarter.
at the half, augie had already taken a three minute edge in time of possession.
down 21-14 in the third, ruffin and brecke capitalized on augustana's snap over the punter's head, hooking up for an 18 yard touchdown on the ensuing play to tie the score at 21.
but it was turnovers that doomed the golden bears for a second straight week, as cu committed four without forcing any. Concordia had two fumbles and threw two interceptions and the vikings would march for three straight touchdowns for the second time in the game, scoring one more at the end of third quarter with two in the fourth.
augustana's final margin of victory for time possession was nearly double that of the golden bears, with augie controlling the ball for 39:28 to cu's 20:34.
the ground game was huge for augustana in the second half, as they rushed 57 times for 167 yards. The vikings' 57 rushes is especially impressive given that concordia only got 51 plays off from the line of scrimmage for the game. Joe clark led the vikings with 31 rushes for 144 yards and three rushing touchdowns. He added a receiving touchdown for four total scores.
after rushing for 21 yards on their opening drive, concordia would only attempt 10 more running plays the rest of the contest, netting -2 yards in the process. Vavra once again led cu's ground game with 23 yards on seven attempts.
through the air, brecke completed 19-34 for 277 yards and two touchdowns while throwing both cu interceptions. For augie, luke butler completed 19-30 for 243 yards and three touchdowns.
augustana rolled up for 410 yards of offense on 87 plays, while concordia had 51 plays for 296 yards. Augustana was 10-18 on third downs while cu was just 4-11. Augie had 23 first downs to concordia's 15.
defensively, the golden bears were led by junior defensive tackle donny severs (burlington, iowa) who had nine tackles, two for loss and a sack. Senior linebackers mike kudick (denmark, wis.) and duy huynh (apple valley, minn.) each also contributed nine tackles. Senior tim oachs (dl, mankato, minn.) had eight tackles and a sack as well.
the golden bears will be on the road for the next two weeks, starting at the university of mary next saturday, october 4 at 1:00 p.m. In bismarck, n.d. Before travelling to nsic south rival minnesota state university, mankato the following saturday.
photography courtesy vince muzik
