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| Aurora made plenty of plays on Saturday, both on offense and defense. Photo by Doug Sasse, d3photography.com |
Wartburg made a little noise and Aurora made a huge noise as each eliminated a WIAC team from the 2022 Division III football playoff bracket, while Alma eliminated Mount St. Joseph and top-seeded St. John's rolled over Northwestern (Minn.).
This recap covers games in the top left-hand bracket, or the St. John's bracket. St. John's will host Wartburg in the second round on Saturday, while Alma will host Aurora. These sites will be formalized on Sunday.
- Playoff scoreboard
- Updated bracket
- Top left bracket: NACC, ARC send WIAC packing
- Top right bracket: Springfield picks up road win; home teams cruise
- Bottom left bracket: R-MC, Utica get stops; Mount, Del Val win big
- Bottom right bracket: Trinity wins on last-minute TD; Bethel edges Wheaton
- Even more game stories
If you kept waiting for UW-Whitewater to put its foot on the gas and put Aurora away, well, it never happened, as Spartans quarterback Josh Swanson hit Cameron Moore for two medium-length touchdowns and one super long one to provide the offense, and got key takeaways, including one in the red zone in the closing minutes as the Spartans went to UW-Whitewater and brought home the first playoff win for the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference, 33-28. Box score and photo gallery
Aurora has been close in the past, going down to the final play against St. John's in 2019, and Concordia-Chicago took Bethel to overtime before falling in the first round of 2012.
A back-and-forth game in the snow in the first half ended up with Aurora taking a 21-14 lead into the halftime locker room. The Spartans scored first in the second half as well, as Josh Swanson hit Moore for a 74-yard strike late in the third. The Warhawks rallied, going 79 yards in just under three minutes to cut the lead to six, and came back again to cut the lead to five with 4:18 to play when Evan Lewandowski found Tyler Holte with a 28-yard TD pass.
And following that, Kyle Koelblinger picked off Swanson in Aurora territory. But Cason Burress returned the favor two plays later at the Aurora 11, and the Spartans were able to run out the clock as Jhequay Chretin went 21 yards on four carries to get the Spartans into kneel-down territory.
Wartburg was able to completely shut down the UW-La Crosse offense and Hunter Clasen ran for 200 yards and a touchdown as Wartburg got past UW-La Crosse 14-6. The Knights defense limited Joey Stutzman to just 3.1 yards per carry and UWL managed just 81 yards on the ground in total, 216 yards of total offense.
Wartburg went to the locker room up 7-6 after La Crosse botched an extra point attempt with 38 seconds left. And the Knights broke loose on the second play of the second half, as Clasen busted loose for a 57-yard touchdown to make it 14-6 with 14:09 left in the third quarter. The Eagles missed a short field goal on their ensuing drive, Dylan Steen intercepted a pass the next time around, and the Eagles never got closer than the 36-yard line the rest of the way. Box score and photo gallery
In Michigan, Carter St. John threw two TD passes, Eddie Williams ran for two fourth-quarter scores and the Scots scored on defense as well as Alma defeated Mount St. Joseph 41-21. It's just the fourth win for the MIAA in the history of the five-round NCAA Division III football playoffs, and the win came at the expense of the HCAC champ. The HCAC is 6-24 in the five-round playoff era. After the teams went to halftime tied at 21, Alma brought the defense, shutting out MSJ in the second half and allowing just 41 total yards.
St. John's made it look easy against UMAC champion Northwestern (Minn.), as Aaron Syverson threw four touchdown passes, all of them in the first half of a 49-0 win. Jimmy Buck caught two of those passes, Nick Van Erp added one and tight end Alex Larson had the fourth.