For two years now Bethel University has come into the conference showdown with St. John’s knowing that they were in a must win situation and both times the Royals have emerged victorious.
In both games the Johnnies have gone into halftime with a lead and the Royals have held the Johnnies scoreless in the second half. Royal QB Ben Wetzel completed just 8 of 18 passes for the game, but he completed a big 4th quarter 36 yard pass to Aaron Bernstett, four plays later the Royals Logan Flannery scored a TD with just 24 seconds remaining to close the door on the MIAC crown for the Johnnies. Bethel claims the MIAC Championship and the automatic NCAA Division III play-off spot that is awarded to the MIAC champion.
Both teams came out and played scoreless football in the 1st Quarter. Mike Patnode got the Johnnies on the scoreboard first with a 7 yard TD run just 8 seconds into the 2nd Quarter.
The Royals then struck back immediately as they returned the kick-off 86 yards for a TD. The Royals definitely saw a weakness when scouting the Johnnies they felt that they could exploit in the Johnnies kick coverage team because the Johnnies did have their initial kick-off land out of bounds. Instead of taking the penalty the Royals elected to have the Johnnies re-kick the ball. It was on this second opportunity that the Royals capitalized on the Johnnies poor coverage and poor tackling by using a simple fake hand-off to run the ball back for a score.
Half way through the 2nd Quarter Alex Kofoed hooked up with Brian Weber on a 46-yard pass play for a TD. This would be the last scoring play on the day for the Johnnies.
The Royals kicked a FG near the end of the half to bring the half time score to SJU 14-Bethel 10.
The second half began the way the game began with both defenses shutting down the opposition. The Royals literally wore down the Johnnie defense with their power running game. Bethel dominated the time of possession by holding the ball for a total of 35 minutes 30 seconds. The amazing thing is that the Royals held the ball for nearly 22 minutes in the 2nd half. The old saying that you can hold an opposition’s offensive production down by not allowing them the get the ball was evident in the results of this game.
Alex Kofoed was 14 of 27 for 156 yards and a TD. Kofoed also threw two interceptions.
The Johnnie ground attack never got going with a combined effort of Patnode, Aaron Blackmore and Jeff Schnobrich totaling just 85 net rushing yards. In contrast Bethel’s QB Wetzel accumulated 88 net yards on the ground. The top ground gainer for the Royals was Logan Flannery with 118 net rushing yards.
Kofoed distributed the ball around to seven Johnnie receivers. The leading receivers were Brian Weber, Chace Pollock and Ben Vanderheyden.
The Johnnie defense, who put up an outstanding showing, were led in tackles by Mike Schumacher, John Cloeter, Joe Luke, Ethan Eid and Kevin Boegel.
My opinion is that if the Johnnie offense could have increased their 3rd down conversion from 4 of 12 to 6 of 12 they would be the MIAC Champions with the automatic bid for the NCAA Division III play-offs. Currently the Johnnies fate is in the hands of the selection committee, they will know their fate shortly.
