st. Cloud, minn. - concordia university’s school record long eight game road winning streak came to a close on saturday night as they fell to #10th-ranked st. Cloud state 41-13 in front of 4,031 fans at husky stadium. The golden bears drop their nsic opener in a non-divisional game and fall to 1-1 overall while the huskies improve to 2-0 overall and 1-0 in the nsic. box score | photos
concordia's last road loss was september 26, 2009 at augustana.
the golden bears started strong, winning the coin toss and electing to start the game on offense. The squad responded on the opening drive as sophomore quarterback james peterson (right, blaine, minn.) led the team on an opening drive that moved the ball 44 yards on seven plays including first downs on back-to-back completions, a 13-yarder to junior tight end nate thienes (mahtomedi, minn.) and a 21-yard completion to junior tre mason (league city, texas).
but they stalled at the st. Cloud state 32 yard line and freshman kicker tom obarski (apple valley, minn.) misfired for the first time in his career on a 50-yard attempt which also set up scsu with excellent field position.
the huskies responded by marching down the field on their opening drive in front of their strong crowd in their home opener and punched the ball into the end zone on a 19 yard passing connection from phillip klaphake to corey henne just over five and a half minutes into the game.
back on offense, peterson engineered another solid drive into the scsu red zone before throwing an interception on a 3rd and goal from the 3-yard line as he was hurried by multiple husky defenders and threw under pressure while trying to escape the rush.
prior to the interception (the first of six team int's on the day), concordia drove 77 yards on eight plays highlighted by back-to-back completions from peterson to senior charles gilbert (pictured below, jacksonville, fla.), one for 12 yards and another for 28 yards. He finished with six catches for 99 yards.
after the interception, scsu answered with another strong drive, marching 80 yards on 10 plays to take a 14-0 lead late in the first quarter capped on a 12-yard klaphake touchdown scramble.
from there, the tone of the game changed and concordia was never closer than two touchdowns behind again.
early in the second quarter on a 3rd and 19 from their own seven yard line things took an even worse turn as peterson (pictured below) gained 13 yards on a quarterback draw but was injured on the play and did not return.
after concordia's punt, st. Cloud state drove down to the concordia three yard line when the golden bear defense tried to turn the game around. On a first and goal rushing atempt. Scsu running back michael walker fumbled in the backfield with senior taylor selby (pictured below, stratford, wis.) recovering to stop the damage.
the golden bears turned to their third string quarterback on the ensuing drive, redshirt freshman jared russo (right, milwaukee, wis.), trailing 21-7 with 12:46 to play in the second.
on his first drive, russo threw the first of five interceptions and finished the game 17 of 27 for 186 yards with two touchdowns.
scsu, who picked the ball off on the 27 yard line, scored on the next play as klaphake connected with damon treat for 27-yard score.
trailing 28-7, russo engineered a scoring drive of eight plays for 79 yards spanning nearly four and a half minutes, the first scoring drive of his career.
his touchdown pass, a 23-yard strike to gilbert with 6:37 remaining, was the first of his career. It was gilbert’s third of the 2011 season and 14th total touchdown of his career with all 14 coming from at least 23 yards.
in the first half, concordia was able to out-gain scsu 246-210 including an 82-31 edge in the run game with two more first downs, 14-12. But scsu led 21-7 going into the break as cu committed three of their turnovers in the opening half.
russo’s second touchdown was a 4th down and goal from the 6-yard line conversion to redshirt freshman cordell smith (right, mequon, wis.), smith’s second touchdown of the year.
klaphake, meanwhile, finished the game 20 of 25 for 250 yards and two passing strikes while rushing for 12 yards on nine attempts and a score. He was sacked three times and did not throw an interception but did lose a fumble.
peterson, concordia's starter, finished 5-7 for 78 yards and an interception and rushed for 10 yards on three attempts before leaving the game early in the second quarter.
while scsu was heavily out-rushed in the first half, the were able to grind the clock in the second half and finished the game with 129 yards on the ground on 40 attempts while concordia had negative rushing yards in the second half and ended the game with 78 yards on 28 attempts.
defensively, concordia was led by redshirt freshman jordan halverson (fridley, minn.) with eight tackles while senior safety micah koehn (lino lakes, minn.) had seven solo stops. Junior nathan maher (right, rockford, minn.) had 1.5 sacks and has totalled 3.5 on the year and selby finished with five tackles (all solo), 2.0 for loss, a forced fumble and a recovery with a sack.
concordia will play in their 2011 home opener next saturday, september 17 against northern state with a 6:00 p.m. Kickoff against northern state for the first annual family day.
