10th-ranked Threshers rain on Bluejays' homecoming years ago
By RYAN RICHTER
Sports writer
First-year Tabor College football coach Mike Gottsch is starting to sound like a broken record when talking about what's gone wrong for his team.
Lack of execution inside the red zone and turnovers have been the biggest reasons why he's yet to win a conference game.
Those two evils were yet to be exorcised Saturday with the Bluejays (1-6, 0-6 KCAC) playing host to 10th-ranked, and KCAC front-runner, Bethel Threshers (6-0, 6-0 KCAC) for homecoming.
Despite scoring the second most points on the Threshers' defense this season, six mistakes and missed opportunities spelled doom for Tabor with Bethel rolling to a 41-20 victory.
Most of the Threshers' success can be attributed to their defense, which leads the nation against the run and holds teams to 10 points a game, and just more than 200 yards.
The Bluejays have been most successful when they've been able to play a balanced game. But the Threshers stymied that, limiting the Bluejays to a season-low negative-one yard rushing, in spite of Tabor gaining 16 yards more of total offense than Bethel's average.
Much of the Bluejays' 216 yards of total offense came against the Threshers' reserves, though, and Bethel's first team sent Bluejay starting quarterback Jason Aubrey to the bench with a concussion.
Anthony Melton ran over the Tabor defense — which allowed Bethel its best offensive output of the season of 392 yards — for three touchdowns and 120 yards rushing. His first four minutes, 55 seconds into the game, capped off an eight-play, 45-yard drive and gave the Threshers a 7-0 lead.
Aubrey still threw for 106 yards, pulling Tabor within a touchdown with 4:10 left in the first half, finding Caleb Marsh from 30 yards out.
Marsh had two of the Bluejays' three touchdowns, catching six passes for a game-career-high 152 yards.
The Bluejays had a chance to tie in the closing 2:19 with Tabor enjoying its best starting point of the game — the Thresher 37 — helped by a miserable south wind. Tabor's chance to tie the game ended with Scotty Yerges picking off Aubrey which made for a 21-7 game at halftime with Melton striking just moments later.
"There's two and a half minutes to go, it's 14-7, we go through a barrage, and we know we're up against a very good football team," a disgusted Gottsch said. "We find ourselves back in the game inside the 30, that's where we've got to make plays. Then there's a costly interception again. That's been the story of the year for us. In Jason's (Aubrey) defense, though, he's got a concussion and should have been out of the game. We didn't recognize it and he's asking goofy questions in the huddle."
Bethel blew the lid off in the second half, scoring 27 straight points to push the lead to 41-7 with 3:12 left in the game.
Aubrey's replacement, Anthony Davis, hit Marsh for an 11-yard touchdown with 1:16 to go and the Bluejays recovered the onside kick. With five seconds left, Davis snuck in from three yards out for the 41-20 final, as the Threshers blocked Derik Martinez's kick.
"I thought our defense played extremely well," said Gottsch. "Bethel's known for their defense. I don't think anyone's put up those kind of points on them."
The Bluejays have a better chance at their first KCAC victory at 1:30 p.m. Saturday when they play host to the 2-5 Southwestern Moundbuilders.
