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Meanwhile, UW-La Crosse linebacker Dane Cordes was unable to come up with the words he was looking for.
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UW-Whitewater's Andy Murray celebrates after recovering an Eagle fumble in the fourth quarter. The fumble set up Whitewater's tying score.
Erik Daily |
The event that Gifford, Cordes and many other participants Saturday were asked to describe was Whitewater’s 35-28 victory in front of a rowdy Oktoberfest crowd of 4,853 people at Veterans Memorial Stadium.
First, it looked like the Eagles, ranked sixth by D3football.com, would win going away over the third-ranked Warhawks.
Then it was a nail-biter.
Finally, it was all Whitewater, which put together a 25-point fourth-quarter rally to win its fourth straight game over UW-L and 16th straight WIAC game.
“We made a lot of big plays in that fourth quarter,” said Gifford, who caught two touchdown passes from Danny Jones during the comeback. “It was kind of a tidal wave and we kept rolling with it.”
Standing on the field after a glum post-game conference with a few other players, Cordes tried to explain what had occurred.
“You know, I have no idea what happened,” Cordes said. “We were playing well that first half and there was a major momentum shift there in the second half. We weren’t the same team when we came out. We wanted it so bad and it was at our fingertips and we lost it.”
The Eagles (2-1, 0-1) put up 436 yards of offense, the most this season against Whitewater’s defense. UW-L got big individual performances from tailback Dan Hall (136 rushing yards), wide receiver Ted Everson (205 receiving yards, two touchdowns) and quarterback Griffin Moe (308 passing yards, four touchdowns).
But there were also missed opportunities and key turnovers that piled up and helped the Warhawks (3-1, 2-0) build their comeback.
“It’s hard to say; we didn’t get it done and they did,” UW-L coach Larry Terry said. “We didn’t get the first downs when we needed to, or put it in the end zone, and they did. It’s very disappointing. This is a hard loss.”
The momentum shift was dramatic. In a span of 4 minutes, 50 seconds in the third quarter, a sequence of four events appeared to all but put the game away for the Eagles.
Everson caught a picture-perfect
58-yard touchdown pass from Moe to give the Eagles a 28-10 lead.
Just under three minutes later, Dan Sellers blocked a 43-yard field goal attempt by Jeff Schebler. During the drive, Whitewater running back Justin Beaver (155 yards, one touchdown), the WIAC’s all-time leading rusher and an Eagles killer, left the game with leg cramps.
His replacement, sophomore Jake Anderson, lost a fumble on his first carry.
“We just gathered up as a team and said, ‘This is it, who’s going to step up?’” said Jones, a senior quarterback who transferred to Whitewater from California Lutheran this season. “That was it and it and it was just kind of, go out there and get it done.”
The comeback started slowly, with Jones moving the team into position for a 41-yard Schebler field goal to make it 28-13.
The sputtering Eagles offense gave the ball back to Jones, who kept the team on the move and hit Gifford for a 29-yard score to make it 28-20.
Two plays later, UW-L tailback Eric Donoval lost the ball when he was hit by Jace Rindahl and Whitewater recovered at the Eagles’ 25.
Jones again went to Gifford, first for a 14-yard touchdown and then a two-point conversion to tie the game.
“In the first half, we weren’t making everything click and they had us back on our heels,” Warhawks coach Lance Leipold said. “We tried to get something going and get a few points, and all of a sudden that momentum did swing our way.”
It stayed with Whitewater, which knocked Moe out of the game on a hard hit near the sideline by A.J. Raebel.
Backup Gus Almonroeder threw an interception on third-and-long, and the Warhawks finished off their comeback on Anderson’s 1-yard run with 1:05 left.
Linebacker Jace Rindahl made the comeback official when he recovered an Almonroeder fumble on UW-L’s last-minute drive.
“When you’re up by 18, you feel really good about it, but we knew we had to score a few more times,” said Everson, whose 205 receiving yards are fifth in school single-game history. “We just let them come back and that was our bad. We can’t do that again.”
Joel Badzinski can be reached at (608) 791-8402 or joel.badzinski@lee.net
