In a season that has seen the Johnnies come up just short in close losses to two of their main rivals, Concordia and Bethel, St. John’s was able to keep their dim playoff hopes alive by pulling out a narrow win of their own for the second straight week, knocking off the upset-minded St. Olaf Oles 20-14 in overtime. While explosive, high scoring offenses have become the norm in Collegeville, it is becoming more and more apparent that the Johnnies will have to rely on their stout defense to lead them to their destiny this season–and once again, that defense showed up when it needed to in Northfield.
Here’s a look at the numbers that shaped the Johnnies’ tight victory over the Oles.
The Klint-cher: Junior safety Bobby Klint was named MIAC Defensive Player of the Week following the win over the Oles, and not just for his solid play throughout the game. He came up huge on back-to-back plays to snuff out St. Olaf drives at the end of regulation and the start of overtime.
Klint intercepted a John Haberman pass midway through the third quarter and returned it to the St. Olaf 15-yard line setting up the Johnnies’ second touchdown of the game. In addition to the interception, he led the secondary with 8 tackles on the game, but that effort wasn’t enough to prevent St. Olaf from trying a potential game-winning field goal from 22 yards out in the waning seconds of the 4th quarter. Klint blocked the field goal sending the game into overtime. On the first play of the overtime session, Haberman completed a pass to Ryan St. John down to the St. John’s 9-yard line. As Klint was tackling St. John he was able to dislodge the ball, which was recovered by teammate Ryan Wimmer. Three Joe Boyle runs later, the Johnnies had found the end zone and knocked off the Oles, spurred on by two late game-changing plays by Bobby Klint.
Out of the Blocks: Klint’s late field goal block stretched the Johnnies’ string of consecutive games with a blocked kick to three. Sophomore safety John Stanton recorded the Johnnies’ first blocked kick of the year when he got to a 3rd quarter punt by Hamline two weeks ago. Senior linebacker Nick Kotsmith followed suit by blocking a 2nd quarter St. Thomas punt a week ago. Klint’s blocked field goal was the first of his career. The Johnnies have had only one of their own kicks blocked this season, an extra point attempt against St. Thomas.
While blocked kicks are certainly a rare occurrence for any football team, they became much rarer with the injury to senior defensive tackle Nick Gunderson early in the season. Gunderson had three of the team’s 4 blocked kicks in 2007 and 5 of the team’s 8 blocks in 2006. Star defensive tackle Damian Dumonceaux also recorded 4 blocks in 2005.
Workin’ Overtime: According to GoJohnnies.com, Saturday’s game marked the 3rd overtime contest in St. John’s football history. It was the Johnnies’ first overtime game since dropping the 2002 season opener 28-21 at UW-Eau Claire. The program’s first overtime game featured a much happier ending as the Johnnies knocked off defending national champion Pacific Lutheran 28-21 in Puyallup, WA in the 2000 West Region semifinals. The Johnnies ended that season with a narrow loss to Mount Union in the Stagg Bowl.
Interestingly, the losing teams in the Johnnies’ three overtime games ran a total of 4 offensive plays before turning the ball over. In 2000, St. John’s safety Brad Beyer intercepted a halfback pass on the Lutes’ second play of overtime to clinch the victory. In 2002, St. John’s tried some trickery of their own as wide receiver Blake Elliott’s pass to quarterback Ryan Keating was picked off on the Johnnies first play of the overtime session. On Saturday, Wimmer’s fumble recovery took place on the first play of the first possession of overtime.
Quick Hits: For the fourth week in a row, junior receiver Ben Vanderheyden led the Johnnies in receptions and receiving yards, catching 5 passes for 71 yards and a touchdown. Over that four game stretch, Vanderheyden is averaging 6 catches for 109 yards and has 4 touchdown catches… Saturday’s game was the Johnnies’ fourth of the season decided by a touchdown or less. They haven’t had more than three such games in a season since 2002, when they had two in the regular season and three more in the playoffs. The last time the Johnnies have had four regular season games decided by a touchdown or less was 1989… In the two games since the Johnnies ran up 390 yards of offense against Hamline, they have managed a combined total of only 383 yards against St. Thomas (182 yards) and St. Olaf (201 yards). The Johnnies and Oles combined for only 453 yards of total offense, the fewest by two teams in a St. John’s game since the Johnnies (144 yards) and the UW-Stevens Point Pointers (253 yards) managed only 397 yards of total offense in the 2001 playoffs. The Johnnies won that cold, muddy slugfest 9-7… The 390 yards of offense compiled by the Johnnies against the Pipers remains a season high. In 2007, the Johnnies surpassed that total in 8 of the 12 games…
