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| Chris Bookter's touchdown catch in the third quarter tied the game against Bethel in the national quarterfinals. Photo by Tom Nettleton, d3photography.com | More photos from this game |
By Brian Lester
D3sports.com
Susquehanna wide receiver Chris Bookter remembers watching Cortland win the NCAA Division III national championship a year ago.
As the record for Cortland appeared on the screen, Bookter thought back to how the one loss on its record was served up by him and his teammates earlier that season. The River Hawks beat the Red Dragons 38-35 in Week 3 of the 2023 campaign.
Looking back now, the fifth-year standout has no doubt that moment provided a lot of fuel for the fire for Susquehanna, which is in the final four for the first time since 1991. That moment created a ‘why not us’ mentality for 2024.
“That one loss on the screen in the national championship game was from us, and I think that’s what helped us shift gears this year,” Bookter said. “We believed it and said that we could make a run. We want to win it all. We just have to keep doing what we have been doing. Keep playing great football.”
Junior defensive lineman Brian Layton has a similar mindset.
“It’s the message we have all been talking about,” Layton said. “We are supposed to be here and can’t let anyone from the outside say that we aren’t. If we listened to that, there’d be no reason to play the games.”
Head coach Tom Perkovich said it was obvious something changed among his players as they watched Cortland claim the title with a 38-37 win over reigning champion North Central.
“Watching a team that we played and went toe-to-toe with, win it last year, it definitely fueled our guys,” Perkovich said. “You could tell the feeling in the building changed. It became a feeling of why couldn’t it be us? Why can’t we do that?”
That belief remains intact as the No. 6 River Hawks (12-1) get ready to play top-ranked North Central (13-0) on the road this Saturday for the right to advance to the Stagg Bowl in January.
Perkovich knows his team has quite the challenge in front of it.
“We are playing an outstanding football team, and we will have our hands full against a great team,” Perkovich said. “But our guys are going to care, and they are going to play hard and play physical, and if we can be the best version of ourselves, we will have a chance to win it in the fourth. This time of the year, that’s all you can ask for.”
This has been a season most can only dream about, but for the River Hawks, who already have the most wins in program history, none of the success comes as a surprise to the players. There was an expectation going into the year that it was possible.
“This is what I came back for a fifth year for,” Bookter said. “We knew we had the staff and the players to get it done and the guys before us laid the groundwork. “It’s surreal to be here, but it’s what we expected. We knew we could be this caliber of a team.”
Layton believed it as well. And after Susquehanna knocked off Bethel 24-21 last Saturday thanks to quarterback Josh Ehrlich’s 1-yard touchdown run on fourth and goal with 38 seconds to play, Layton took some time to soak in the joy of the moment, to let the feeling sink in that Susquehanna was one of the last four teams standing.
“It’s definitely a beautiful thing,” Layton said. “When the final whistle blew, I stopped and looked at the scoreboard, and looked at my family, and took a moment to realize all the hard nights, the early mornings, were worth it. I thought about the process.”
Perkovich couldn’t be prouder that the process is paying off for his football team.
“It’s been exceptional to see our guys reap the fruits of their labor,” Perkovich said. “We’ve taken the next step as a program and are doing something that hasn’t been done since 1991. It’s incredibly special and an exciting time for our team, our campus and our alumni.”
None of it happened with the snap of a finger. Layton thinks back to the hard work in the offseason, especially those cold winter mornings.
“It starts with those 6 a.m. runs, when you don’t want to get up. When there is snow on the ground. When you are digging deep,” Layton said. “We also didn’t go halfway on reps in practice or games. We have made every rep count. It’s thinking back to those things that helped get us to this point.”
Bookter always knew the hard work would pay off.
“We’ve seen where hard work takes you,” Bookter said. “Those runs at 6 a.m. We didn’t want to do it, but we knew it would benefit us in the fall. It’s paying off. And shout out to the scout (team) guys. They put in just as much work as us and they’ve helped make us better players.”
The last two years, Susquehanna lost in the opening round of the postseason, falling 17-10 to Utica in 2022 and suffering a heartbreaking 21-20 loss to Grove City last year.
Lessons were learned in those tough moments.
“In 2022, we didn’t play well enough to win, and we took that we can’t just be satisfied with making the playoffs,” Perkovich said. “Last year, we played an outstanding Grove City team and lost, but we played much better than we did the year before.
“The takeaway that year was that we learned about what it’s going to take to be successful in the playoffs and we made sure everyone understood,” Perkovich continued. “Now we have a taste of what it’s like to win in the playoffs, and our guys have shown resilience and mental and physical toughness to get through the tough moments.”
Valuable lessons were gained in a 40-38 loss to then No. 2 Cortland on Sept. 21. It was the River Hawks’ first regular season loss since 2021.
“That loss sparked a fire in us,” Layton said. “The past two years, we had gone unbeaten in the regular season and went into the playoffs without ever having the experience of working past a loss and having adversity thrown in your face. We learned from our mistakes and realized we had to do more than we were doing to be in the position that we are in now.”
Bookter called that game against Cortland a ‘practice playoff game.’
“That was a practice playoff game basically,” Bookter said. “We knew to win those kinds of games, we’d have to keep our foot on the gas pedal and keep pushing until the clock hits zero.”
Perkovich said he loves that his team has learned from its past experiences, and he has enjoyed seeing his team have fun while working hard.
“It’s why I coach,” Perkovich said. “To see the guys have success and see them celebrate, and when you see that pay off, it’s the best feeling. “They deserve it. And they believe in themselves. There is value in hard work, and it’s value that will carry them far in life and on the field. They are a super resilient team that continues to play football really hard and continues to find ways to get the job done.”