SPOKANE, Wash. – Possible postseason hopes are on the line when Whitworth hosts Pacific (Ore.) in a Northwest Conference football game on Saturday at the Pine Bowl. It is Senior Day and Military Appreciation Day at Whitworth. The game kicks off at noon and will be heard live in Spokane on KSBN 1230am and on the internet at KSBN.net. The radio broadcast will begin at 11:45 am (PDT).
Whitworth (7-1 overall, 4-1 NWC) dominated 68-14 at Puget Sound last Saturday. Pacific (4-3, 3-2) crushed Lewis & Clark 42-19 at home.
Protect the Crew: According to Washington State mandates, masks are required at all football games in the Pine Bowl, regardless of vaccination status. Please plan accordingly.
Military Appreciate Saturday: As part of Whitworth University's Veteran's Day celebrations, all active duty military and veterans, along with direct family members, will be admitted to the Whitworth Pine Bowl free with I.D. Pregame festivities will include parachute jumpers landing at the Pine Bowl, an Air Force flyover during the national anthem.
Senior Day: Twenty one seniors will be recognized prior to kick off on Saturday. They will be suiting up in the Pine Bowl for the final time in their careers.
The Pirates: Whitworth scored on its first five possessions and went ahead 35-7 after one quarter in last Saturday's 68-14 win at Puget Sound. The Pirates played every healthy available player on offense and defense.
Solomon Hines ran four times for 47 yards and two touchdowns as Whitworth picked up 201 rushing yards, surpassing 200 yards as a team for the first time this season. Isaiah Jones ran five times for 63 yards and had a 15-yard touchdown. Quarterback Jaedyn Prewitt was part of the effective running game as well, picking up 34 yards and a touchdown on four carries. Prewitt completed 15 of 20 passes for 334 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. For the second week in a row, twelve different receivers caught passes in the game. Matthew Fiesta, Jarvis Natividad and Alan Ballew all had touchdown receptions in the game. Whitworth had 341 yards of offense in the first quarter and finished the game with a season-high 625 yards.
Jaylen Gonzales led the defense with six tackles and a pass breakup. Whitworth allowed 154 yards in the first quarter, but only 181 the rest of the way. Colton Chelin picked off his second pass of the season in the third quarter, returning the ball 15 yards to set up a touchdown. The Pirates had four sacks for 33 yards in losses.
Nate RaPue made field goals from 21 and 28 yards and averaged 58.1 yards per kickoff, including two touchbacks. Alvaro Campos-Ontiveros only had to punt three times and averaged 38.7 yards per attempt. Jarvis Natividad returned four punts for 40 yards (10.0 per return). Whitworth's special forces covered ten kickoffs and limited Puget Sound to an average of 17.1 yards per return.
400: Whitworth won for the 400th time in school history on October 16th vs. PLU. The Pirates' all-time record in football now stands at 402-411-18. 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 Shane Modena.
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 eight career interceptions and 22 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 112 of 191 passes (58.6%) for 1,667 yards with 12 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 10-14 in field goals, with a long of 49 yards, and 34-35 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 first among "others receiving votes" in the D3football.com poll.
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).
Eight in a Row: With the win over Willamette on October 23rd, Whitworth clinched its eighth consecutive winning season under head coach Rod Sandberg. That surpassed the Pirates' previous longest streak of seven straight winning campaigns, set between 1959 and 1965 under Sam Adams ('59-'64) and Rod Enos ('65).
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 Boxers: Pacific University bounced back from a pair of tough Northwest Conference losses to Linfield and George Fox with a dominating win over Lewis & Clark last Saturday to improve to 4-3 overall and 3-2 in the NWC. The Boxers average 36.9 points and 377.9 yards of offense per game. They allow 26.71 points and 344.7 yards per contest.
Ian Falconer is in his first full season as Pacific's head coach, following 10 seasons as an offensive assistant with the Boxers. Prior to his time at Pacific, Falconer was offensive coordinator and offensive line coach at Lewis & Clark from 2006 through 2009.
The Boxers feature a powerful running game, led by senior RB Joshua Harris, who has 825 yards and 12 touchdowns on the ground this season. He averages 117.9 yards per game and 5.0 yards per carry. As a team, Pacific runs for 178.6 yards per contest. Senior QB Kenyon Harris (not related), has completed 68% of his passes for 1,317 yards with 13 touchdowns and only two interceptions. He has also run for a pair of scores. Kyle Kern (Jr., WR) has 39 receptions for 385 yards and six scores, while Ty Hargis (Sr., WR) has 36 catches for 409 yards and three TDs. Chase Hoffman, a junior safety, leads the team with 47 tackles and has three pass breakups. Noah Steverson (So., DL) has seven sacks (42 yards) among his 8.5 total tackles for loss (60 yards) and 22 total tackles.
Pacific exploded for four second quarter touchdowns on the way to a 35-3 halftime lead against visiting Lewis & Clark on Saturday. The Boxers cruised to a 42-19 win, rolling up 304 yards on the ground and five rushing touchdowns. They held the Pioneers to only 47 rushing yards and 1.8 yards per run. Joshua Harris ran for 133 yards and three touchdowns, while Kenyon Harris completed 13 of 23 passes for 160 yards with one touchdown. Hargis caught six of those balls for 101 yards and a touchdown. Noah Steverson led the defense with four tackles and a sack. Zion Booker forced a fumble and intercepted a pass.
The Series: Whitworth leads the all-time series 24-4-1, including a win in the most recent game in 2019. The teams first met in 1910 with Pacific earning a 21-0 victory. The Pirates and Boxers would not meet again until 1967 when Whitworth won 21-0. The teams played every year between 1973 and 1984. The series resumed from 1987 - 1991. Then Pacific dropped its program and did not field a varsity team from 1992 through 2009, coming back in 2010. Whitworth's largest margin of victory was 45-0 in 1976. The Boxers' largest win came in that initial meeting between the schools. Pacific won two in a row in 2013 and 2014 and Whitworth has won the last five.
Last Meeting: Trailing 28-14 midway through the second quarter, Whitworth rallied for a 38-28 win at Pacific in the 2019 season finale for both teams and a game that decided second place in the final NWC standings. The Pirate defense dominated the second half. After Pacific rolled up 247 yards of offense before halftime, Whitworth shut out the Boxers and held them to only 137 yards in the second half. Whitworth outgained Pacific 477-384 and had a 26-19 edge in first downs, even though the Boxers had the ball for 34:27. The Pirates sacked Kenyon Harris five times.
Coming up next: Whitworth will play Pacific (Ore.) in its final home game on November 6th at noon.
