SPOKANE, Wash. – Whitworth will conclude its season with a game at George Fox on Saturday that will determine whether the Pirates are tied for second place, or finish fourth in the final Northwest Conference football standings. 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 (7-2 overall, 4-2 NWC) lost 14-7 to Pacific (Ore.) in its home finale last Saturday. George Fox (5-3, 5-1) crushed Lewis & Clark 40-9 on the road.
Protect the Crew: According to the George Fox Spectator policy, masks are required at all games, regardless of vaccination status. Please plan accordingly.
The Pirates: After scoring 134 combined points in its previous two games, Whitworth's offense could not get untracked in a 14-7 loss to visiting Pacific (Ore.) in the final home contest of the season.
Whitworth's defense kept the Pirates in the game until the end, holding Pacific to a season-low for points scored and total offense (245 yards). Jaylen Gonzales led the team with eight tackles, while Patrick Serrano, BJ Mullin and RudyJay Keopuhiwa all had seven. Serrano broke up a pass, Mullin forced a fumble and Keopuhiwa had one of Whitworth's sacks. Colten Chelin broke up three passes. The defense held Pacific without a point at the end of the second quarter after the Boxers took over on the Whitworth's 16-yard line following a fumbled punt. For the first time this season, however, the Pirates were unable to force a single turnover.
Whitworth was held to a season-low 235 yards of offense, 177 passing and only 58 rushing. The rushing yards were impacted by four sacks, which added up to 23 negative yards. Jaedyn Prewitt provided a spark with his running, finishing with 68 yards on 11 carries while converting three third downs into first downs. He completed 14 of 20 passes for 128 yards with a 23-yard touchdown pass to Jerusalem To'oto'o in the second quarter that tied the game. He did not throw an interception before he was injured and left the game at the end of the third quarter. Back up QB Caleb Christensen completed 5 of 14 passes for 49 yards and nearly directed a game-tying drive on Whitworth's final possession before the Pirates stalled at Pacific's 11 yard line.
Alvaro Campos-Ontiveros punted four times for an average of 39.0 yards. Matthew Fiesta had a 38-yard punt return.
Final Standings in the balance: George Fox still has a chance to share the NWC title if the Bruins win and Linfield loses to Lewis & Clark this week. GFU can finish no worse than tied for second place, even with a loss. Whitworth would force a two or three-way tie for second if the Pirates win. A loss would likely mean a fourth place finish for the Bucs.
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 402-412-18. 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 Dillon Kuk.
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 2018 season, when he was the Northwest Conference Freshman of the Year. He has eight career interceptions and 25 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 125 of 210 passes (59.5%) for 1,758 yards with 13 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 35-36 in PATs.
Extended Home Slate: Whitworth played 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.
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.
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 Bruins: George Fox University clinched at least a share of second place in the final conference standings with a dominating win at Lewis & Clark last Saturday to improve to 5-3 overall and 5-1 in the NWC. The Bruins average 27.9 points and 296.0 yards of offense per game. They allow 20.5 points and 352.8 yards per contest.
Chris Casey, who was Whitworth's defensive coordinator from 1994 - 2004, is in his ninth year (34-34) as head coach at George Fox. He was the head coach at Aloha (Ore.) High School from 2005 through 2012, where he won a 6A state title in 2010.
The Bruins feature a stout and opportunistic defense. They have 19 takeaways this season – 11 interceptions and eight fumble recoveries. Josh Poppleton (Sr., LB) leads the defense with 63 tackles and an interception. Justin Montijo (Jr., DB) has 50 tackles and a team-high three interceptions. Joe James (So., LB) leads the team in tackles for loss (6.5 – 38 yards). Haiden Schaan (Jr., QB) has completed 114 of 180 passes (63.3%) for 1,503 yards with nine touchdowns and seven interceptions. He has also run for two scores. Adam Hawker (Jr., WR) is the leading receiver with 28 receptions for 400 yards and two scores. Ethan Kassebaum (Jr., RB) has run for 426 yards (5.1 ypc) and five touchdowns.
George Fox outscored Lewis & Clark 21-0 in the second half for a 40-9 win on the road last Saturday. L&C outgained the Bruins 446-390, but turned the ball over six times on four interceptions and two fumbles. Poppleton returned an interception 100 yards for the game's final touchdown. George Fox did not turn the ball over once. Schaan completed 21 of 28 passes for 272 yards. Kassebaum ran for 88 yards and a score, while Josiah Schmidt rushed for 55 yards and two touchdowns. Kassebaum also caught six passes for 72 yards. Poppleton finished with ten tackles, while James made eight stops.
Coaching Connections: In addition to head coach Chis Casey, other members of the Bruins' staff have a strong connection to Whitworth. Defensive Coordinator John Bates was an All-Conference safety at Whitworth (96-99) and coached two seasons with the Pirates. Special Teams Coordinator Ian Sanders was also an All-NWC defensive back at Whitworth (1997-2000). Defensive line coach Nic Brockhoff earned All-NWC recognition as a linebacker during his Pirate career (2011-2014).
The Series: Saturday's game is the seventh meeting between the two schools and Whitworth leads the series 5-1. The Bruins picked up their first win of the series in 2017, 43-23 in Spokane. The Pirates earned their largest margin of victory in the series in 2018 in Newberg (38-14).
Last Meeting: Jamal Edwards' interception at the Whitworth goal line with 50 seconds to play in the game preserved Whitworth's 19-14 win over visiting George Fox Oct. 19, 2019 in the Pine Bowl. In a game dominated by rainy, windy weather, a pair of big special teams plays led to victory. Andrew Merdith blocked one punt and returned a second blocked punt 11 yards for the eventual game-winning touchdown. Isaiah Cole set up Whitworth's first touchdown of the game with a 40-yard punt return deep into GFU territory. Noah Alejado punted nine times for an average of 39.2 yards per kick. Two were downed inside the 20 yard line.
Whitworth gained only 265 yards of total offense in the game. The Pirates held the Bruins in check for most of the day, limiting the Bruins' Jaden Sheffey to 176 yards passing and 47 yards running. Andrew McCoy had a big game leading the defense. He had two of the Pirates' three sacks and nearly had two more with QB hurries. He tied for the team lead with seven tackles and was named NWC Defensive Player of the Week.
