SPOKANE, Wash. – For the second straight week Whitworth University held on in the fourth quarter to win at home against a first-time opponent. The 23rd-ranked Pirates will hit the road for the first time this season with Saturday's game at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in Claremont, California. Kickoff for the matchup of unbeaten teams is at 11:30 am. The game will be heard live in Spokane on KSBN 1230am and on the internet at KSBN.net. The radio broadcast will begin at 11:15 am (PDT).
Whitworth (2-0) is coming off a 31-29 victory over Lincoln University last Saturday. CMS defeated Northwest Conference member Lewis & Clark College 34-10 to improve to 2-0.
The Pirates: Whitworth built a 31-9 lead at the beginning of the fourth quarter, then held on to defeat visiting Lincoln 31-29 when Jacob Hogger intercepted a pass in the final seconds for the second week in a row.
Special teams made the difference. The Pirates blocked a field goal and an extra point attempt by the Oaklanders and stopped a two-point conversion. Nate RaPue made a 30-yard field goal and all four of his extra points, while Alvaro Campos-Ontiveros punted seven times for a 31-yard average. Matthew Fiesta and Cameron Sheley combined to average 31 yards on three kickoff returns.
Whitworth's defense came away with four interceptions in the game. In addition to Hogger's game-clinching pick, Patrick Serrano returned an interception 42 yards for a touchdown in the third quarter. Defensive end Mason Bertelli intercepted a pass at the line of scrimmage and Colton Chelin had his first interception of the season.
The offense finished with 302 yards of offense, but only 9 yards in the fourth quarter when the Bucs had a chance to put the game out of reach. Jaedyn Prewitt completed 13 of 29 passes for 187 yards with two touchdowns and one interception. He completed touchdown passes of 14 yards to Ethan Peloquin and 62 yards to Isaac Fields. Peloquin finished with four receptions for 50 yards, while Fields had three catches for 71 yards. Solomon Hines ran 12 times for 42 yards, while Isaiah Jones ran for 37 yards and a touchdown.
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.
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 Atticus Templeton.
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.
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.
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 two 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 has returned an interception for a touchdown each of the last two seasons.
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 19 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.
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.
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.
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 3-3 in field goals and 5-5 in PATs.
D3football Rankings: Whitworth made its debut in the D3football.com rankings last week at #24. The Pirates moved up one spot to 23rd this week.
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.
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 sixth 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 carry two of Whitworth's games this season: the October 2nd game against Lewis & Clark and the October 16th 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 Stags: Claremont-Mudd-Scripps is off to an impressive 2-0 start in 2021, including last Saturday's 34-10 win over Lewis & Clark. The Stags are averaging 29.5 points per game and allowing only 6.5 points per contest. They put up 349 yards of offense per game, compared to 203.5 yards per game for the opponents. Head coach Kyle Sweeney is in his tenth season with a 51-46 record. He led CMS to the 2018 Division III playoffs after capturing the championship of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletics Conference.
Holden Thomas, a graduate student, is the starting QB and he has completed 58.5% of his passes for 352 yards with three touchdowns and four interceptions. In contrast to the experience of Thomas, first-year Stags litter the stat sheet. Freshman WR Anderson Cynkar is a big play maker, with two touchdowns and an average of 34.5 yards per catch. Two freshman, Joshua Martinez and Justin Edwards, have combined to run for 226 yards and four touchdowns (two each). Freshman DB Kirby Baynes leads the team with 14 tackles and a forced fumble. Senior OLB Stiles Satterlee has two sacks and four pass breakups.
CMS scored 20 third quarter points to pull away from Lewis & Clark in last Saturday's 34-10 win. The Stags trailed 10-7 at halftime, but Martinez broke free for a 26-yard touchdown run on their first possession of the third. Cynkar hauled in a 79-yard touchdown pass at the end of the third. CMS outgained L&C 429-252, including a 251-43 advantage in rushing yards. Thomas completed 6-15 passes for 139 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions. Edwards ran for 96 yards and two scores, while Martinez rushed for 95 yards and one score. The defense sacked Pioneer QBs five times for 23 yards. Baynes had five tackles and a forced fumble.
The Series: Whitworth and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps have played only once, in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Division III playoffs. The Pirates won that game in Spokane.
Last Meeting: Whitworth fell behind 6-0, but then scored the next 48 points in a first round victory over CMS on Nov. 17, 2018. The Pirates prepared all week for a run-heavy offense, but with SCIAC Offensive MVP Garrett Cheadle unable to play due to an ankle sprain, the Stags went to a pass-first attack. The strategy took the Pirates by surprise early, allowing CMS to score the game's first touchdown on its first possession. Once the defense adjusted, the Stags struggled offensively. Whitworth outgained CMS 513-288, including a 192-37 edge on the ground. The Pirates sacked CMS quarterbacks six times and the Stags converted only 2 of 15 third down attempts.
Whitworth had big plays on special teams as well. Tyler Adamson blocked his sixth kick of the season after the CMS touchdown, extending his own school record. The Pirates took a fake punt 48 yards for a first down and hit both of their field goal attempts.
Coming up next: Whitworth will get next Saturday off before opening the Northwest Conference schedule at home against Lewis & Clark on October 2nd.
