Senior Morgan Fox walks back to the Pack locker room for the last time. | Photo by Jason Prescott
Yet another lopsided football game took place at the Neta and Eddie DeRose Thunderbowl Dec. 6, when a 31-7 blowout occurred in a quarterfinal game of the 2015 Division II football playoffs against Grand Valley State University.
Unfortunately for the Pack, this week’s contest was the first all year that the ThunderWolves found themselves on the losing side of that blowout.
In a high-energy atmosphere in the team’s biggest game of the season, the Pack was never once in the game.
GVSU quarterback Bart Williams threw a 65-yard touchdown pass on the game’s first play from scrimmage to wide receiver Matt Williams to take a 7-0 lead with the game just 16 seconds underway.
The Pack would handedly trail for the rest of the game until the contest’s final 31-7 result.
The ThunderWolves were unable to utilize the skills that made the team thrive for the majority of the year, running the football ineffectively and playing poorly on defense throughout the game due largely to the commanding performance of the GVSU Lakers.
“Grand Valley… my hat’s off to them and coach Mitchell. They’re one hell of a football team,” said CSU-Pueblo Head Coach John Wristen.
“We got down early and couldn’t seem to be able to gain any traction or make any moves there and that’s uncharacteristic of Pack football,” he said.
Senior running back Cameron McDondle had his lowest rushing total of the season in a game that he started and finished, rushing for just 106 yards on 19 attempts. McDondle had a record-breaking season for the Pack, finishing the season with the Pack’s single season rushing record of 2,235 yards.
McDondle finished his remarkable CSU-Pueblo career with program records in both rushing yards, with 5,951, as well as rushing touchdowns, with 56.
GVSU’s defense stymied the Pack’s passing attack, holding freshman quarterback AJ Thompson to 5-for-13 passing for just 34 yards through the air.
Photo by Dustin Cox, CSU-Pueblo Athletics
“They out hit us, they out-flew to the ball and they out executed us. We had trouble throwing the ball and it caught up to us. These are the factors that when you become one dimensional it’s hard to win ball games when you pay against a very good defense like Grand Valley,” Wristen said.
The Pack’s normally lock-down defense gave up big plays throughout the contest and allowed a season-high 323 yards rushing, an amount more than triple the teams season average of 95 yards allowed per-game.
The ThunderWolves finished the season 12-2, after winning the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference for the fifth straight year.
A notably emotional Wristen praised his senior athletes, commending them for their dedication to Pack football over their athletic careers with CSU-Pueblo.
“I’m proud of the 17 seniors that we have, I’m proud of this program, I’m proud of what we’ve done in 2015 and it’s tough to say that it’s going to end,” Wristen said.
“Those guys are special kids. They will be tough to replace. They bought into this vision of what we wanted to do and they’ve done it. Our seniors have led us and they were great and I’m going to miss them.”