MEGS WILLARDBears head football coach Larry Kindbom had a decision to make. After having scored a touchdown to pull to within 24-21 of the Illinois Wesleyan Titans, the Bears recovered an onside kick at the Wesleyan 42-yard line. They had then marched down the field, all the way to the one, with time running out. Down by three points, the Bears could do one of two things: kick a field goal, taking the sure thing and tie the game, or go for the touchdown, which would decide the game right then and there.
The Bears opted to kick the field goal, and took an intentional delay of game penalty to move the ball back to the six, giving kicker Ben Lambert a little more room to work with. But from 24 yards out, Lambert missed the kick wide left, and the Titans escaped from Francis Field with a tough victory.
After just the first home opening loss in 11 years for the Bears, the team stands at 1-2 and has some kinks to work out before UAA play begins.
“We played hard – well enough to win,” said Kindbom. “But we didn’t win. It was a game of missed opportunities from our standpoint. I wanted it to come down to where we run a football play and the game would be decided right there. We could do that or take the delay and kick the field goal. We went for the field goal; I wanted to see us try to put it over from the one, and I felt bad about that because I control that part of it. There were just so many opportunities, and we took advantage of some, but not others. It was our game to win or lose, but we just didn’t get it done.”
A big area of concern for the Bears was the pass defense. Coincidentally, both teams compiled exactly 396 yards of total offense, but the Titans’ distribution of the yards was quite peculiar: just 53 on the ground, but 343 through the air. Receiver Eric White had an outstanding day, catching 12 passes from quarterback Steve Lucas for 203 yards and two touchdowns.
“We do want to take away the running game and force teams to throw the football,” said Kindbom. “We knew they had a good receiver, and he obviously did the things he was capable of doing. Because of injuries, we had a lot of guys that were still getting into the flow of the game, but we just need to execute our game plan better.”
Another unwelcome statistic for the Bears was 14 for 33 – the completion rate for quarterback Adam Meranda.
“That’s really a team thing,” said Kindbom. “We dropped some balls out there. But we certainly want completions, and we can’t be 14 for 33 and be successful a lot of the time. We want to increase that percentage, but that’s not just an Adam deal, that’s a team deal.”
The Bears went into the locker room at halftime with a 14-10 lead, thanks to a 64-yard bomb from Meranda to wide receiver Brad Duesing. But they came out a little flat for the second half, allowing the Titans to march down the field and score the go-ahead touchdown. Then, Meranda was intercepted by Mike Mastor, and Wesleyan capitalized on the turnover with Lucas’s third touchdown throw of the game.
“We really didn’t establish ourselves in the third quarter,” said Kindbom. “The last two games, we did that. And what I mean is, we need to come out on offense and move the football right after halftime. Again, we had some opportunities, but the bottom line is that we just didn’t get it done. When you come out up 14-10, you have to punch another one in and make it a two-score situation, but instead we allowed them to score twice.”
After falling behind 24-14, the Bears showed some resolve by compiling a drive of their own. They finished it off with Duesing’s second touchdown grab of the day, a 28-yarder. With 4:48 still on the clock, the Bears opted to try the onside kick, which they did successfully, leading to Lambert’s chance at the end.
The Bears continued to be troubled by erratic special teams play, and also allowed the Titans to convert some big third down opportunities, something the Bears failed to do in turn.
Despite the losing record, Kindbom remains optimistic about the rest of the season.
We played better than we had the week before, and last week we played better than we had the week before,” said Kindbom, “so I still believe that we could be a really good football team.”