In a game where the scoreline didn't really reflect how the game progressed, Davenport University defeated Mount St. Mary's 33-3 at a neutral site in Ohio.
Playing at St. Edward High School in Cleveland, the two teams are both handling some player transitions. Both have graduated a large number of seniors. However, Davenport came in a bit more experienced, and fans will remember that this past May, when the Panthers won the CRAA D1A Challenger Cup, they did so without their seniors, who were at their graduation ceremonies.
So it was those underclassmen who got the job done in Indianapolis and rode that confidence and success through to this fall.
The game began with Mount St. Mary's on the front foot and they put consistent pressure on what turned out to be a pretty tenacious Davenport defense. However, after Davenport fumbled a high ball, Mount still came away with points with a nicely-taken drop goal in open play—not something you see every day in the modern game and it was a smart move.
Davenport did get some more possession, but they remained bottled up in their own half for much of the first part of the game. But a break from center Graham Wynne finally got the Panthers into attacking position, and after Mount was offside on a clearance kick, they took a shot at goal. That missed. But soon thereafter Davenport pressured the line and flanker Max Goethals powered it over. Dawson Hovingh converted and Davenport led 7-3.
Most of the rest of the first half was spent in Davenport's end of the field. Mount's defense was good enough to make running out of their half tough for the Panthers, and the MSM kick-counter was solid—fullback put in a very nifty play to keep a penalty kick to touch inbounds and take the fight back to their opponents.
A good 10 minutes were spent with Mount within about 10 meters of the Davenport goalline. The Panthers committed several penalties, some of them rather silly ones, and eventually saw prop Alex Korff sin-binned when referee Dan Finn had seen too many infractions. Mount chose the scrum on several occasions, but the Davenport defense, led by Goethals and Cruize Bannister at flanker and with scrumhalf James Pearson and Wynne at center, too, was organized and aggressive.
"In that first half we backed our defense the whole way," said hooker Jack Snidanko, who was also outstanding. "Boys came up, smacked hard, double hits, everything. We came out with good energy."
Prop Zavier Leatherman made a good play to rescue a kick into in-goal, too.
Davenport had a chance to score at the end of the first half and didn't get anything out of, but overall, when the teams went into the locker rooms with the Panthers up 7-3, Mount St. Mary's knew they had missed some chances.
"We're building and there were a lot of good things there," said MSM Head Coach Jay Myles. "But sometimes you just have to get the support or the work to get that last meter. We felt we had about 60, 70 percent of the territory in that first half."
And that is an accurate assessment by Myles.
Davenport, meanwhile, knew they would get points once they got better field position. The message from Head Coach Dominique Bailey was, in part, to be smart in the breakdown and just defend and reset.
