SPOKANE, Wash. – Whitworth University held on in the fourth quarter to win its season opener at home against a first-time opponent last week. The 24th-ranked Pirates will take on another first-time opponent at home this Saturday when they host Lincoln University (California) in the Pine Bowl at 1:00 pm. The game 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 is coming off a 13-10 victory over Carnegie Mellon University last Saturday. Lincoln fell to NAIA powerhouse Arizona Christian University 33-9 in its first-ever football game on August 28 in Glendale, Arizona.
The Pirates: Whitworth opened a 13-0 lead at halftime, and hung on in the second half as Jacob Hogger intercepted a pass in the endzone with 17 seconds left to play to preserve the season-opening 13-10 victory.
The Pirate defense held the Tartans to 288 yards and came up with two interceptions. In addition to Hogger, Parker Shaw intercepted a pass in the first half that he returned for 22 yards, which set up Whitworth's second field goal. Derrick Platt led the team with eight tackles, including an eight-yard sack. BJ Mullin made seven stops.
The offense finished with 307 yards of offense, but only 16 yards in the fourth quarter when the Bucs had a chance to put the game out of reach. Jaedyn Prewitt completed 19 of 38 passes for 207 yards with an interception. CMU defenders sacked him four times for 32 yards. Jerusalem To'oto'o caught five passes for 64 yards, while Matthew Fiesta had four receptions for 46 yards. Isaiah Cole ran the ball six times for 57 yards (9.5 ypc). Solomon Hines ran 11 times for 54 yards in his debut.
Nate RaPue made both of his field goal attempts, extending his consecutive makes streak to eight over the last two seasons. Alvaro Campos-Ontiveros punted seven times for an average of 40.4 yards. Fiesta averaged 7.7 yards on four punt returns and 26.5 yards per kickoff return.
Winning the Opener: 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 Dhylan Worster.
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 six career interceptions and 18 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.
D3football Rankings: Whitworth made its debut in the D3football.com rankings this week. The Pirates moved up from "others receiving votes" to 24th in the first regular season poll. Click here for the entire D3football.com top 25 poll (9/6/21).
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 will once again be 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 Oaklanders: Lincoln University is in its initial year of varsity sports in 2021-22, which includes football, along with men's and women's basketball. Lincoln is a private institution of around 500 students, located in Oakland, California. The Oaklanders fell to Arizona Christian 33-9 in its first football game ever on August 28. Lincoln is playing its entire 10-game schedule on the road this season. The Oaklanders will play schools from every classification except FBS in 2021.
Desmond Gumbs, an Oakland native, is both the head coach and the school's Director of Athletics. He is navigating Lincoln's eventual membership as an NCAA Division II program. Reflective of a first-year program, sixty three of the 77 players on Oakland's roster are college transfers, including 18 players from NCAA Div. I FCS or FBS schools.
The Oaklanders were tied with the ACU Firestorm 9-9 in the second quarter before the hosts pulled away in the Arizona heat. Lincoln finished with 193 yards of offense while allowing 430 yards to the Firestorm. Cameron Burston, a transfer from Tarleton State, completed 9 of 22 passes for 83 yards and a touchdown. He also ran 14 times. Faizon Knight, who came from Adams State, caught three passes for 29 yards and Lincoln's first-ever touchdown. Running back Mike Green, a transfer from Wyoming, ran 12 times for 68 yards (5.3 ypc). Jaquez Williams-Chist led the defense with two interceptions and five tackles.
The Series: Since Lincoln is a first-year program, the Pirates and Oaklanders have never played in football.
Coming up next: Whitworth will play its first road game of the season next Saturday (September 18th) at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps. The Pirates and Staggs last played in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Div. III playoffs.
