DePauw wins thriller; Central rolls

Nov 20, 2021

Tanner Schminke had two of Blaine Hawkins' seven touchdown passes as Central rolled up 61 points on Bethel.
Photo by Ryan Coleman, d3photography.com

DePauw got five picks and a goal-line stand to hold off Rose-Hulman, while Central, Wheaton and UW-Whitewater rolled. That included the Dutch handing Bethel the only first-round loss by an at-large team in first-round games of the 2021 Division III football playoffs on Nov. 20.

This recap covers games in the bottom left-hand bracket, or the UW-Whitewater bracket. Central advances and is expected to host Wheaton in the second round on Nov. 27, while UW-Whitewater will host DePauw. Sites will be announced on Sunday.

DePauw's defense picked off five Rose-Hulman passes and stopped the Fightin' Engineers with a goal line stand another time as the Tigers held on for a 26-21 win. Rose-Hulman outgained DePauw 514-293 in terms of total yards.

RHIT scored with 35.5 seconds left on a pass from Andrew Dion to Adam Tice-Saliu to cut DePauw's lead to 26-21, and Tice-Saliu also recovered the onside kick at the DePauw 47 to give RHIT a chance. The team converted a fourth down to get to the 28 and had a pass swatted away in the end zone with 4.6 seconds left. DePauw sealed the win with a tackle at the 22 on the next play to finish the game off. Evens Cribs totaled 10 tackles and had four pass breakups, while Luke Marsh totaled nine stops. DePauw totaled 15 pass breakups with Henry Locke adding three. Jonathan Bruder had two of the Tigers' five interceptions.

UW-Whitewater scored 28 points in the first quarter and 27 more in the second quarter as the Warhawks rolled to a 69-7 win against Greenville. The Warhawks have won six national titles, while Greenville was making its first NCAA football playoff appearance. Alex Peete paced the UW-W offense with 93 yards rushing and four touchdowns (one receiving), eclipsing the 1,000-yard mark for the season for the third time in his career. Max Meylor threw for 239 yards and three touchdowns, and Ryan Wisniewski led the receiving corps with five receptions 98 yards and one touchdown.

Wheaton blew open a one-point game with 28 second quarter points and went on to roll past Aurora 63-31. Aurora finished 8-3 on the season, with all three losses to teams currently in the top six of the D3football.com Top 25 poll. Wheaton totaled a season-high 665 yards of offense, rushing for 427 yards with 238 passing yards. The Spartans had 444 yards of offense, including 427 through the air. Giovanni Weeks ran for 174 yards on 18 carries, averaging 9.7 yards per carry, and scored a touchdown to open that second-quarter surge.

No. 8 Central rolled past No. 15 Bethel in a first-round matchup, outscoring the Royals 34-14 in the second half en route to a 61-35 win. Blaine Hawkins threw for seven touchdowns and Tanner Schminke had 12 catches for 194 yards and two scores for the Dutch. Jaran Roste threw for 353 yards and three touchdowns, but averaged just under 7.0 yards per attempt and was picked off twice. Jason Hopp added 115 yards on the ground for Central, which improved to 11-0 and avenged a loss to the Royals in the 2007 national quarterfinals.