DAYTON, Ohio - The Drake University football team
suffered its first conference setback of the season in a 28-13 loss at Dayton
Saturday afternoon. The Flyers scored a pair of fourth quarter touchdowns, the
last coming on a drive that lasted 8:27, to pull away and squash any comeback
hopes for the Bulldogs.
The loss drops Drake to 5-1 in the Pioneer Football league
and 6-3 overall. Dayton improves to 4-3 in the PFL and 5-5 overall. The loss was
Drake's first conference loss in its last 10 PFL games.
“If you're not at your best in our league, you're going to
get beat,” Drake head coach Chris Creighton said. “This was one of Dayton's
best games, if not their best game. We have a ton of respect for them. I
thought that they were great today and we weren't at our best.”
The Flyers, who came into the game with the PFL's top
rushing offense racked up 118 yards in cold, rainy conditions that hindered
Drake's offense. However, senior Mike Piatkowski (Wheaton, Ill.) still
managed to pass for 243 yards with Nick Rosa (Owasso, Okla.)
accounting for a season-high 119 receiving yards.
“Nick [Rosa] is a great receiver and I'm not surprised that
he had a big game,” Creighton said of Rosa's afternoon. “That guy is a fighter
and a guy that we want to go to and rely on. I know he was fighting today, we
just weren't able to do it.”
The teams played the first half to a 7-7 draw and as the
cold rain continued in the second half, Dayton broke the stalemate when Kyle
Sebetic intercepted an errant Piatkowski pass and returned it 32 yards for the
touchdown to make the score 14-7, Dayton.
A possession later, Drake answered with an interception of
its own as Travis Merritt (Johnston, Iowa) tipped a pass that Jake
Underwood (Cary, Ill.) snagged out of the air for his second interception
of the season. Ten plays later, Cam Bohnert (Edmond, Okla.) hit a
25-yard field goal to cut Dayton's lead to 14-10.
Bohnert tacked on another field goal, from 30 yards, on the
Bulldogs' next possession. However, the Flyers answered with a 3-yard touchdown
run from Rob Washington that capped a 5-play, 68-yard drive with just over 12
minutes left in the contest to put Dayton up, 21-13.
Dayton's next possession sealed the game as the Flyers
engineered a their clock-sapping drive that took 8:27 and spanned 67 yards on
14 plays. The final play of the drive, a 5-yard run by Dan Jacob, accounted for
the 28-13 score and left Drake with just over a minute left in the game. Jacob
ran for 39 of his 68 yards on that drive.
The first half saw Dayton waste little time in lighting up
the scoreboard with a 77-yard drive on its opening possession. The following
series resulted in a field position battle that saw Drake come up on the short
end until Tyler Moorehead (Mason City, Iowa) blocked a field goal
attempt to end Dayton scoring attempt.
That block gave Drake another long field with the ball on
its own 4-yard line, but the offense found itself in the endzone 13 plays later
as a 6-yard Piatkowski to Scott pass capped the 96-yard drive to tie the game
midway through the second quarter.
The Bulldogs return to action next weekend in another
critical PFL matchup when they host first-place Butler at Drake Stadium.
Kickoff on Nov. 10 is scheduled for 1 p.m. CST.
