Purple Raiders turn to ground express in 35-0 ravaging of Polar Bears
By Keno Sultan
C-Town Radio announcer and statistician
ALLIANCE--The national championship drought at Mount Union has spanned five years.
And that is extremely too long for a program that is dominant with a staggering 11 national championships and 33 Ohio Athletic Conference titles.
The ground express just may be the ticket to the nationally second-ranked Purple Raiders ending their drought.
In front of a solid homecoming crowd at Kehres Stadium, Mount Union survived an uncharacteristically low scoring first half and turned to their running game as DeAndre Parker rushed for three touchdowns in the second half as they wore down a gritty Ohio Northern team to post a 35-0 victory that keeps them atop the OAC standings at 3-0 and 4-0 overall.
For the first time all season, the hosts faced adversity as the Polar Bears played with a zest and zeal that kept them in the contest. But zest and zeal can only take a team so far and once the Purple Raiders got their engine started, the deluge overwhelmed the visitors.
"You know, they came out a little different up front. (Defensively), they did a good job with their personnel, so I would have liked for us to figure it out a little sooner but when we talked at halftime, we came up with a plan of how we were going to attack it," fourth-year head coach Geoff Dartt said. "The offensive line and running backs did a great job."
The Purple Raiders defense has continued to be a nightmare for the opposition. They have now recorded two shutouts in three conference contests. As well as Ohio Northern played in the first half, they were never really able to penetrate deeply into Mount Union territory and as a result of that, they were unable to find the end zone.
On a day where senior quarterback Braxton Plunk passed for a modest but adequate 163 yards with a touchdown to Wayne Ruby late in the second quarter, the Purple Raiders churned out 227 yards rushing as Parker accounted for 133 of those on 20 carries for his second 100 yard rushing game on the season and 12th overall in his career. Tyler Echeverry rushed for 71 yards on 11 carries and a 33-yard touchdown sandwiched between Parker's scores of four and one yard respectively in a 21-point third quarter that salted away the contest.
"I said at halftime, we were up 7-0 and no one was talking. I said 'guys, we have one of the top defenses in the country and we're up 7-0, let's have some more energy and attack the second half," Dartt said. "Overall, I was happy to see what we did in the second half. But we have to get off to a better start from an offensive standpoint."
For Ohio Northern, the schedule does not become easier as they will venture to John Carroll in the second of a three-game road trip as they try to sever a three-game losing streak to return to the win column for the first time since a 40-7 win over Capital three weeks ago. The Polar Bears are now 1-4 overall (1-3 OAC)
Mount Union will take a voyage to Heidelberg with a kickoff time of 1:30 p.m. as they continue their march to a 34th OAC title. Dartt and his legion of Purple Raiders will look to have a better start but not before he cautioned that not all games will be routs as evidenced by last week's 74-7 pasting of Muskingum, in which the defense intercepted four Muskies passes and returned two of the thefts for touchdowns.
The Purple Raiders are now 4-0 (3-0 OAC).
"Football is hard to win games plain and simple. There's an expectation here that we want to win all the games and we want to hold ourselves to that standard but every game isn't going to be a blowout so when we face some adversity, they didn't flinch and the defense kept going and that was good to see as a coach," Dartt said.
The national championship drought at Mount Union has spanned five years. But the performance of their ground game just eventually may be their ticket to a long overdue 14th national championship.
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