Fighting Bees Rock
Tigers
By: Ryan Holtmann
DAVENPORT, Iowa – Nobody said
winning had to be pretty. That
is what St. Ambrose Fighting Bees head coach Todd Sturdy was saying at the
conclusion of Saturday’s game against the Iowa Wesleyan Tigers.
With the way Sturdy looked, you
would have thought that the Bees had just handed the Tigers (0-7, 0-4)
their first win of the season.
That was not the case as the Bees
handled the Tigers 35-13 at Brady St. Stadium, improving to 4-3 overall
and 2-2 in the MSFA Midwest.
“It was a sloppy game,” Sturdy
said. “Somebody kept it
close.”
The Bees jumped out early and never
looked back. Running back Joe
Schimmel rushed for three of his four touchdowns in the first quarter to
give the Bees a 21-3 edge after one quarter of play.
“It’s important to get teams
down early,” Schimmel said. “And
it’s tough not to score from five, six yards out when you have these big
guys in front of you.”
Schimmel had runs of 4, 6, and 1
yards in the first quarter and later tacked on a 19-yard run for a score.
He finished the day with 171 yards on 21 carries, leaving him just
a mere four yards shy of the 1,000 rushing yards plateau.
“Every week we want to come out
and run the ball and we ran the ball well today, which opened a lot of
things up,” Schimmel said.
The Fighting Bees defense continued
its dominance in the MSFA and proved why they are the league’s top
defense. They gave up 205
yards on the day, but had three forced fumbles, two of which they
recovered, an interception returned for a touchdown and three sacks for 20
yards.
“Everybody stepping up their
effort is what made this a good outing,” defensive coordinator Rich
Wright said following the game. “One
time it’s Mike Aussieker, the next time its Kevin Hopkins or Shawn
Giffin, Brandon Graves, whoever, it’s just a collection of guys getting
together, and we are starting to see the results.”
The most vicious of the sacks came
from Mike Novak who, as Bees linebacker Mike Aussieker described it,
“threw him like a rag doll.”
Aussieker finished the day with ten
tackles (seven assisted) and 1.5 for a loss of two yards.
Junior linebacker Kevin Hopkins led the defense with ten tackles
(six assisted); a pass break up and an interception returned 24 yards for
a touchdown.
Both Tigers quarterbacks took
myriad hard hits on the day and failed to get their offense going enough
to make it a game.
Tigers’ sophomore defensive back
Kelly Philius probably received the worst hit of the day when he was
attempting to make a tackle on a punt return.
However, Bees wide receiver Chris Burhans cleanly laid him out on a
day where numerous big hits took place.
The Bees did have some trouble on
the penalties side of things, committing 14 for 129 yards on the day,
sometimes helping the Tigers offense along.
“I tell you what, if we quit
shooting ourselves in the foot as far as some of the silly penalties we
would be playing really well,” Wright said.
“We had a couple of times where we could have gotten ourselves
off the field, but a penalty kept their drive alive.
“But our kids are playing pretty
hard, they’re playing intense and feel they have a lot to play for,
we’re getting after it.”
The Fighting Bees are now set to
take on the St. Xavier Cougars, the team that ended the Fighting Bees
streak of 19 consecutive MSFA Midwest division victories, a record in the
MSFA.
They will travel up to Chicago on
Saturday with the game kicking off at 1 pm.
The game can be heard on the Fighting Bees flagship station KALA
88.5 and 105.5 FM or on the Fighting Bees athletics website http://www.sau.edu/athletics.
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