SPOKANE, Wash. – Seven games into the 2021 season, the Whitworth Pirates are set to play their fifth home game when they host the Willamette Bearcats on Saturday in the Pine Bowl. The game kicks off at 1:00 pm and will be heard live in Spokane on KSBN 1230am and on the internet at KSBN.net. The radio broadcast will begin at 12:45 pm (PDT).
Whitworth (5-1 overall, 2-1 NWC) is coming off a 31-17 win over visiting Pacific Lutheran last Saturday. Willamette (1-5, 0-3) fell just short of a stirring comeback victory in a 43-41 loss to Lewis & Clark at home.
With a victory on Saturday, the Pirates will clinch their eighth straight winning season under head coach Rod Sandberg. It would mark the longest stretch of winning years in school history.
Protect the Crew: Masks are required to be worn at all times in the Whitworth Pine Bowl, regardless of vaccination status. Please plan accordingly.
The Pirates: Whitworth gave up six turnovers, had the ball for ten fewer minutes than Pacific Lutheran and watched a 17-0 lead evaporate by the fourth quarter, yet still won by two touchdowns in a 31-17 victory over Pacific Lutheran on Homecoming and Family Weekend.
The Pirates ran 13 fewer plays than PLU, yet outgained the Lutes 367-281. Whitworth had its best rushing game of the season, picking up 189 yards on 36 carries (5.2 yards per attempt). Solomon Hines ran for 89 yards (4.9 ypc) and a touchdown, while Isaiah Jones gained 54 yards (6.0 ypc) with a TD. Matthew Fiesta made an impact on four WR sweeps or reverses, gaining 55 yards (13.8 ypc). Jaedyn Prewitt completed 13 of 26 passes for 178 yards with four interceptions and two touchdowns. Kanen Ables and Ethan Peloquin caught the touchdown passes.
Patrick Serrano and Dylan Ventress led Whitworth with ten tackles apiece. Jaylen Gonzales finished with nine tackles, including two for losses of seven yards, and forced and recovered a fumble at the end of the first quarter. Dylan Owen, making his first start at defensive end, was disruptive throughout with 3.5 tackles for loss, including two sacks, and two other QB hurries.
Nate RaPue made one of two field goal attempts, from 32 yards in the second quarter. His 38-yard attempt later in the second barely missed wide left. Alvaro Campos-Ontiveros only had to punt twice, for an average of 57 yards. Cameron Sheley averaged 22.3 yards per kickoff return and Fiesta averaged 7.7 yards per punt return.
400: Whitworth won for the 400th time in school history on Saturday. The Pirates' all-time record in football now stands at 400-411-18. The last time Whitworth was over the .500 mark in football was 1928, when the Bucs were 32-31-2 all-time following an 0-3 season. Whitworth won its 100th game in 1959, during Heritage Gallery member Sam Adams' second season. The 200th victory came in 1981 under Bruce Grambo and the 300th win came in 2006 when John Tully led the Pirates to an 11-1 finish. It took 55 years to get the 100th win, 32 more to get to 200 and 25 to get to 300. It has taken Whitworth only 15 years to get to 400. In 1997 Whitworth's all-time record in football was 248-337-18, 89 games under .500.
Team Captains: The Pirate team captains in 2021 are Jaedyn Prewitt and Cody Bollig from the offense and Bryce Hornbeck and BJ Mullin from the defense. A special teams captain will be selected on a week-by-week basis. Last week it was Dylan Peterson.
Extended Home Slate: Whitworth will play six home games in 2021, two non-conference contests and four Northwest Conference dates. The last time the Pirates had six home games during the regular season was 2018, which is the last time Whitworth won a Northwest Conference title.
Bryce Stands Tall: Despite the fact that he is one of the smaller players on Whitworth's roster, Bryce Hornbeck has come up huge for Whitworth's defense the last three seasons. After he did not get much playing time in his first two years, Hornbeck has owned one corner spot since 2019. He had four interceptions that season and five deflections. He added three interceptions in 2020-21 with four breakups. He returned an interception for a touchdown each of those two seasons. He has three picks this fall and now has nine career interceptions at Whitworth.
The Ironman: Colton Chelin has not missed a start, much less a game, in his Pirate career. The senior cornerback has started every game since stepping on campus for the 2019 season, when he was the Northwest Conference Freshman of the Year. He has seven career interceptions and 21 passes defended in his career.
Prewitt Can Do It: Jaedyn Prewitt, who threw nine passes over the course of his first two seasons, worked his way to becoming Whitworth's starting QB last spring. All he did was complete 62 of 103 passes (60.2%) for 1,074 yards with 11 touchdowns and two interceptions. He established career highs with 458 passing yards, 23 completions, 38 attempts and four touchdowns in the season-ending win over Pacific Lutheran. So far this fall Jaedyn has completed 82 of 152 passes for 1,001 yards with six touchdowns and six interceptions.
Mr. Touchdown: If there was an official statistic for touchdowns per reception, Ethan Peloquin would likely have been a national leader in that category last spring. Half of his 14 receptions went for touchdowns. He had at least one in each of the four games. Four of those touchdown receptions came on either third or fourth down. He leads the team with five touchdown catches in 2021.
The Anchor: Cody Bollig is in his second season as Whitworth's full-time starter at left tackle. He has played in every game of his Pirate career, beginning as a major contributor during his freshman campaign.
Nearly Nate Ra-Perfect: Nate RaPue was selected as the "In the Huddle" Division III Special Teams Player of the Year last spring after he made all six of his field goals and all 19 of his extra points. So far in 2021 he is 7-10 in field goals, with a new long of 49 yards, and 15-15 in PATs.
Shutout Avoided: Whitworth scored against Linfield with 1:04 to play to avoid the Pirates' first shutout since a 35-0 loss at Linfield on Nov. 9, 2002, a stretch of 179 straight games. It is the longest stretch of games between shutouts in Pirate football history. The second longest stretch of starts between shutouts is 77 games from midway through the 1994 season until the Linfield game in 2002.
National Rankings: Whitworth fell out of the top 25 in both the D3football.com poll and the AFCA Division III Coaches Poll following a loss to Linfield on October 9th. The Pirates are listed second among "others receiving votes" in the D3football.com and seventh in that list in the AFCA ranking.
NWC Poll: Whitworth was second in the 2021 NWC preseason coaches poll with 43 points and one first place vote. Linfield (49 points, 7 first place votes) was first and Pacific (Ore.) (35 points) was third. Coaches cannot vote for their own school.
Winning the Opener: Following a season-opening victory over Carnegie Mellon, Whitworth has now won seven of its eight season-openers under head coach Rod Sandberg. The Pirates are 5-1 at home and 2-0 on the road. Whitworth's only season-opening loss under Sandberg was a 50-49 OT setback to Central (Iowa) in 2016. The Pirates defeated the Dutch 56-13 in Pella, Iowa during the season opener the next season.
Looking back at last "season": Whitworth played four games, but only two opponents, in 2020-21 after the season was delayed until February and March because of COVID-19. The Washington members of the Northwest Conference played only each other in all fall and winter sports.
The Pirates opened with a 53-6 win over Puget Sound and beat the Loggers 30-12 in Tacoma in game three. After beating Pacific Lutheran 28-10 on the road in the second game, Whitworth closed the spring with a 56-23 win over the Lutes at home.
Leading the Evergreen State: Since Rod Sandberg took over as Whitworth's head coach in 2014, Whitworth University has the best winning percentage of any football playing university in Washington State. Heading into 2021, the Pirates are 51-14 since 2014, a winning percentage of 78.5. That figure is better than the University of Washington (58-27, .682), Washington State (47-34, .580), Eastern Washington (59-24, .710), Central Washington (45-21, .682), Pacific Lutheran (24-33, .421) and Puget Sound (31-31, .500).
Seven in a Row: With the win at Puget Sound last March, Whitworth clinched its seventh consecutive winning season under head coach Rod Sandberg. That matched the longest streak of winning campaigns in school history, set between 1959 and 1965.
On the Air Again: Whitworth's games are once again carried live this season on KSBN 1230am in Spokane. The relationship between Pirate athletics and KSBN goes back to 1994, a span of 25 years. Bud Nameck, familiar to listeners in Spokane as the (now retired) longtime host of the KXLY 920am Morning News, is in his seventh season as the voice of the Pirates in 2021. He was the voice of Washington State University men's basketball for 22 years, and spent that same amount of time on the Cougar football broadcasts – the final three on play by play. He is a longtime resident of the Inland Northwest who began his career as the Sports Information Director and radio voice of Gonzaga University basketball and baseball in the 1980s.
Two SWX Broadcasts: Local cable station SWX will carried two of Whitworth's games this season: the Oct. 2nd game against Lewis & Clark and last week's contest against Pacific Lutheran. SWX stands for Sports & Weather Right Now and is owned by local NBC affiliate KHQ channel 6. SWX can be seen both over-the-air and through some cable services in the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene, Kennewick-Pasco-Richland, and Yakima viewership areas. In the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene area, SWX is found on digital channel 6.2, on Comcast channel 112 in Spokane and Time Warner channel 306 in North Idaho. Click here for a complete list of station numbers throughout the Eastern Washington/North Idaho region.
The Head Coach: In seven seasons Rod Sandberg has entrenched himself in the Whitworth and NCAA record books as the Pirates' head football coach. Sandberg has guided the Pirates to a 51-14 record over that span, including two appearances in the NCAA Division III playoffs (2015 and 2018). He is in second place in total victories in school history and no Pirate coach reached 50 victories as quickly as Sandberg. Sandberg's winning percentage of .785 is the best among Whitworth coaches with at least five seasons and currently ranks among the top 10 active coaches in all of Division III. He coached the Pirates to only the fourth unbeaten regular season in school history (9-0) in 2018 and only the second NCAA playoff victory (48-6 over Claremont-Mudd-Scripps). The Bucs' 15-game winning streak, counting the final five games of 2017 and the first ten of 2018, is the second-longest in school history. Whitworth was 6-4 in 2014, Sandberg's first season, the best first-year record for a Pirate football coach since Rod Enos led the team to a 6-3 mark in 1965. Sandberg spent 19 seasons on the defensive staff at Wheaton College (Ill.), including the last 11 as defensive coordinator. Wheaton made the NCAA Division III playoffs five times during Sandberg's tenure as defensive coordinator. The team never lost a first round playoff game and reached the Division III semifinals in 2008 and quarterfinals in 2003. Sandberg's 2007 and 2013 squads led the Collegiate Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin, regarded as one of the strongest football leagues at the Division III level, in scoring defense. The Thunder were second in the league in scoring defense five other times.
The Bearcats: Willamette is showing definite signs of improvement under third-year head coach Isaac Parker. The Bearcats (1-5 overall, 0-3 NWC) are averaging 23.2 points and 253.7 yards per game, while allowing 24.7 points and 280.3 yards per contest. Willamette is hungry to end a 26-game Northwest Conference losing streak that dates back to Oct. 29, 2016. The Bearcats do have a win over NWC-member Puget Sound earlier this season, but that was a non-conference match up.
Parker, a Willamette alum who graduated in 2002, was previously the offensive coordinate at Lewis & Clark College from 2015-2018. Before that he was the head football coach for three seasons at McNary High School in Keizer, Oregon.
Senior QB Aidan Kuykendall has played the most for the Bearcats this season, but sophomore Dante Chaney made his first start last week against Lewis & Clark. Kuykendall has completed 58% of his passes for 865 yards with 10 touchdowns and four interceptions. Chaney is 18 of 47 (38.3%) for 186 yards with two touchdowns and three interceptions. First-year WR Noah Niblett has been the favorite target with 29 receptions for 281 yards and four touchdowns. Fellow first-year Joseph Castillo has run for 281 yards (4.4 ypc) and three touchdowns. Sophomore linebacker Dylan Hall leads the defense with 36 tackles. Senior DL Keaton Adams is having an All-NWC kind of season with 13.5 tackles for losses of 74 yards, including 8 sacks (60 yards).
Willamette fell behind Lewis & Clark 34-14 in the third quarter, but rallied to get within 43-41 with 21 seconds left in the game. An on-sides kick attempt was unsuccessful. Castillo had a huge game, running for 127 yards on 27 carries with two touchdowns. Chaney completed 9 of 23 passes for 100 yards with one touchdown and one interception, but he was under heavy pressure all game. Niblett caught a touchdown from Kuykendall on the game's final drive. Hall led the Bearcats with seven tackles, while Adams had six tackles, including two sacks for nine yards.
The Series: Willamette University is Whitworth's second-oldest continuing rival. The teams first met on the field in 1908 and Whitworth won 18-0. The biggest Pirate win in the series was 82-7 in the teams' last meeting in 2019. The biggest Bearcat victory was 67-0 in 1912. Willamette holds a 33-24 edge all-time, but the Pirates have won the last six matchups, the Bucs' longest winning streak in the series. Willamette's last win over Whitworth came in 2013 in Salem by a score of 50-21.
Last Meeting: Whitworth took the ball away seven times and held Willamette on downs four other times, fueling a dominant 82-7 victory over the Bearcats on Homecoming/Family Weekend in the Pine Bowl in October of 2019 during the Pirates' home opener.
Whitworth's defense limited Willamette to 191 total yards, including only 14 yards rushing. The Pirates had season-highs in pass interceptions (5), sacks (3) and fumble recoveries (2) and the Bearcats averaged only 2.5 yards per play. Whitworth took advantage of turnovers and other Willamette miscues to turn a 31-7 halftime lead into a 66-7 lead through three quarters. The Pirates rolled up a season-high 361 rushing yards.
Coming up next: Whitworth will play at Puget Sound on October 30th at 1:00 pm in Tacoma.
