Season openers give opportunity for players coaches and fans to see what to expect from this year’s squad. Picking up opponents for the non-conference schedule can sometimes be a challenge for the Johnnies, and so this year’s season opener was played on a beautiful day at Clemens Stadium against the defending champions from the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference, the Northwestern Eagles from Roseville, Minnesota. There are some Division III football experts who would say that the Eagles can compete with the midrange teams of the MIAC, one reliable source informed me on Saturday afternoon that the Eagles had a scrimmage with one of these midrange MIAC squads last week and the Eagles looked quite impressive. We all know that the Johnnies are not a midrange MIAC squad and the one-sided 56-10 score reflects that.
Eight Johnnies scored touchdowns and five Johnnies intercepted passes thrown by Northwestern’s sophomore signal caller Josh Balzer.
John Stanton Sr. LB #13
The Johnnie offensive unit brushed off a fumble in their first series by QB Joe Boyle, and produced a very balanced attack, showcasing their depth at running back with all four main running backs Jakob Reding,Stephen Johnson,Nick Schneider and Harry Awe all finding the end zone. Boyle did a nice job of spreading the ball around to receivers Sam Pederson,Brayde Lipp and Josh Overman as well as the stable of running backs to keep the Northwestern defense off balance throughout the day.
For the most part the Johnnie defense played well, five interceptions are evidence of this, but as any opening game will have there were a few breakdowns in coverage. One of these breakdowns resulted in a touchdown of a 28 yard pass reception and run coming at the 9:05 point of the 2nd quarter. This breakdown in coverage will be resolved when the team and coaching staff takes a look at video of the game early next week there is no doubt about that. The impressive answer to this error in coverage was on the ensuing kickoff where SJU returned man and starting cornerback Mike Bonynge, fielded the ball near left sideline eluded a Northwestern defender cut across the field and picked up a wall of blockers, ran over a Northwestern defender and then engaged the afterburners as he rocketed to the end zone to nullify the previous score by the Eagles. The five interceptions for the Johnnies came from John Stanton, Mike Bonynge,Alex Powell,Justin Nilson and Andrew Rotschafer.Billy Lawrence was the leading tackler for the Johnnies.
Mike Bonynge Soph CB #12
Next week with Johnnies travel to Eau Claire,Wisconsin to take on the Blu-Golds in what has traditionally been a very tough, hard-hitting contest. The competition increases each week as the season progresses. It’s nice to have the first game jitters out of the way and take away some very positive things on both sides of the ball, knowing there are also things to improve on.At this point,the Johnnies are 1-0 and that’s as good as it gets with one game under the belt.
