Kansas Wesleyan’s valiant upset effort came up one quarter short in the first round of the NAIA Football Championship Series.
The Coyotes led No. 14-ranked Dickinson State by 10 late in the third quarter but could not hang on and fell 27-20 on a frigid Saturday afternoon at the Henry Biesiot Activities Center.
After starting the year with a 2-4 record KWU entered the postseason on a five-game winning streak and finishes with a 7-5 record. DSU (10-1) won for the eighth consecutive time and will play second-ranked Grand View (Iowa) next week on the road.
“You can’t ask anything more from the coaches and what the kids and coaches have gone through the last six weeks,” co-interim head coach Chris Snyder said. “It’s just sad that it’s over. You wish you could do more for the kids.”
Embracing their underdog status once again the Coyotes scored on Byron McNair’s 41-yard pass to Darrias Pearsall on their first offensive play of the game with 13:28 left in the opening quarter for a 7-0 lead.
DSU went on top 10-7 late in the first quarter. Wesleyan answered on Luke Armstrong’s 24-yard touchdown run with 12:06 left in the half and led 14-10 – the advantage they took into the locker room at halftime.
Armstrong struck again on the fourth play of the second half when he sprinted 75 yards for a touchdown. The extra point attempt was blocked but the Coyotes led 20-10.
Armstrong, the NAIA’s second leading rusher, finished with 156 yards rushing on 22 carries – a whopping 7.1 average. DSU’s defense entered the game allowing an average of just 69.5 yards rushing per game.
The Blue Hawks narrowed the gap to 20-13 with a field goal with 1:51 left in the third quarter but it was at that point Lady Luck turned her back on KWU.
Zarek Fewell initially appeared to return the ensuing kickoff back for a touchdown, but it was negated by a holding penalty. McNair responded with a 58-yard pass to Latavion Staples to the DSU 15-yard line, but Armstrong fumbled on the next play. The Blue Hawks’ Jayden Heartwell recovered and returned it to the 40-yard line.
DSU then embarked on a 15-play drive that culminated with quarterback Will Madler scoring from the 1 and tying it 20-20 with 8:26 remaining.
The Coyotes went three-and-out on their possession and punted. Starting at their own 17-yard line DSU drove 83 yards on 16 plays, 15 of them on the ground. Madler ended it with a 12-yard touchdown run with 29 seconds left.
KWU finished with 311 total yards (158 passing, 153 rushing) while DSU had 357 total (231 rushing, 126 passing). Defensively the Coyotes had four sacks, an interception and recovered a fumble.
McNair was 11 of 14 passing for 158 yards, one touchdown and one interception. Pearsall caught three passes for 42 yards and Armstrong three for 27.
Quatama Massaquoi led the defensive effort with 11 tackles while Myle Elam had 10 and Daren Hawkins nine, a sack and an interception. Josh King-Bradley had 2.5 sacks and five stops.
“It really comes down to two plays with the fumble and the return getting called back,” Snyder said. “We knew what they were going to do and we made plays but obviously just didn’t make enough.”
Madler threw for 126 yards and 48 yards rushing, that included the two touchdowns. Braden Zuroff had 90 yards rushing including a 3-yard touchdown run in the first quarter.
“It’s amazing what these kids, this group has done,” said Snyder, who shared the head coaching role with David Leonard over the last six games. “We didn’t have a mass exodus when the (coaching) change happened and there were a lot of great leaders with the older kids.
“Coaches can talk till they’re blue in the face, but the credit goes to the kids and also the coaches and the relationships we had with them. That’s the hardest part right now, we wanted to keep it going.”
