DELAWARE VALLEY TOPS WIDENER
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JIM CLEMENTS CELEBRATES WITH RUNNING BACK TYLER NEAL AFTER THE AGGIES WIN
College football has been through a lot this week so it was good to see the game back on the field and it didn’t matter if it was in front of 108,000 at Beaver Stadium or 3700 on a near perfect fall day at James Work Memorial Stadium on the campus of Delaware Valley College. It was there that the Del Val Aggies scored a 56-28 win over their rivals from Widener University to win back the Keystone Cup, complete a 10-0 regular season, win their fourth-straight MAC league title and clinch a spot in the 32-team NCAA Division III football playoff field.
“It was just a great atmosphere, for a great college football game,” said Aggies quarterback Aaron Wilmer, who threw for 333 yards and four touchdowns and ran for another score.
Widener (8-2,6-2 MAC) came in having scored not less than 54 in their last five games while the Aggies hadn’t allowed more than 21 in a game all season so something had to give and it appeared – at least in the first half it would be the Aggies. The Pride scored 28 points in the first half on a 51-yard punt return by Laquan Robinson and three scoring drives, the longest of which took 52 seconds. Del Val (10-0, 8-0 MAC) was a bit more traditional with their three first-half scoring drives but it was the last of those three that might have been the most important score of the day.
With just over six minutes left in the first half the score was tied at 14, less than a minute later Widener would be up 28-14 thanks to Robinson’s punt return and a fumble by the Aggies on the ensuing kickoff than lead to a 2-yard touchdown run by Terrant Morrison.
Del Val would answer with a nine-play, 65 yard drive that took up most of what remained of the first-half clock. The key play was a seven-yard pass from Wilmer to Rodney Blango on a fourth-and-three from the Pride 11. Two plays later, Kyle Schuberth scored on a 2-yard run, it was his second short touchdown run of the first half.
“That was huge,” said Widener head coach Isaac Collins about the Aggies scoring drive. “I told our defense that our offense does us no good on the sideline. We couldn’t get off the field. We had a couple of missed assignments that were uncharacteristic of those kids and I think it could be just how big the game was.”
After being let down twice in a row by their special teams, the Aggies got a good kickoff from Brandon
Snyder and the coverage tackled the dangerous Robinson, who now has four kick or punt returns for touchdowns this season, inside the 20. The defense would force Widener into a three-and-out.
While holding the Pride to a combined 13 yards on their first two possessions of the second half, the Aggies scored on both of their third quarter chances. Wilmer hit Tyler Neal with a five-yard scoring pass to cap a 94-yard drive that tied it. With just over three minutes left in the quarter, Wilmer gave Del Val their first lead of the game when he scored on an 18-yard run.
“They had a bye week,” Wilmer said, “so they came in with stuff we didn’t see before. They pressed us and we couldn’t pick it up at first but our coaches made adjustments and we came out executed. That’s it.”
That was it. The Aggies out gained the Pride 316 yards to 131 in the second half and scored on five of their six possessions. The only time that Del Val didn’t score in the second half was when they ran out the clock at the end of the game.
“We didn’t just want to play keep away from them because we didn’t want to limit out down the field plays because we can make big plays too,” said Del Val head coach Jim Clements, who scored his 50th win as coach. “We made big plays, they made big plays. We just happened to make more.”
Clements hopes the Aggies will continue to make more big plays when they start the playoffs at home on Saturday against Norwich. The Pride will host Waynesburg in the ECAC Division III South Atlantic Bowl.
Contact Rock Hoffman at RDVSports@yahoo.com
