Sorrowful Saturday
Tabor turns ball over five times in crushing 27-3 loss to 19th ranked Ottawa
By RYAN RICHTER
Sports writer
The heated race for the KCAC title took a huge turn Saturday afternoon in Hillsboro after the highly anticipated showdown between 13th ranked Tabor and No. 19 Ottawa.
For the Bluejays, it was a turn for the worst, and for the Braves, sole possession of first place in the KCAC at 7-0.
Gunning for their first league football championship ever, a 27-3 loss to the Braves threw a monkey wrench into the unhealthy Bluejays' plans of running the gauntlet in the KCAC.
Tabor spent three hours doing cheap labor Saturday, piling up 348 yards of offense and getting three points out of it.
"We never had good field position, we never finished drives and we never got our defense off the field," said Bluejay coach Tim McCarty. "We got beat by a good team, we didn't play our best game by any means but our kids don't have to hold their heads down. We didn't get beat by a bad opponent."
Highlighting Saturday's card was the match-up between the Braves' top ranked offense against the KCAC's top defense.
As rolls Braves running back Derrick Ward, so does the Ottawa offense.
The NAIA's third leading rusher (178 ypg.,) the 6-0 242 pound wrecking ball transfer from Fresno State, Ward, ran roughshod over through the Bluejay defense, carrying the ball 36 times for 231 yards and four touchdowns.
It would be terrifying to see how many yards Ward would have had he been in all the Braves' second halves. The game against the Bluejays was the first full game he's played in in five weeks.
"He's a great player," Tabor linebacker Eli Kennedy said of the former Western Athletic Conference Newcomer of the Year Ward. "He definitely exposes your weaknesses. We didn't play well, and we needed to have a lot of things happen for us. We wish we'd have done some things different."
One was to get Tyson Ratzlaff involved in the offense.
Instead, Ratzlaff caught three passes from 14 attempts for a season-low 38 yards.
When the receiving tandem of Ratzlaff and Tyler Marsh are on, Tabor is nearly impossible to stop. Throwing 43 times for 267 yards, Tabor's aerial assault never really got off the ground.
Bluejay quarterback Ricky Ishida got the ball to Marsh 10 times for a quiet game-high 174 yards in receiving, but Tabor never generated it into points.
Marsh's 62-yard catch set up the Bluejays only points of the day, Keenan Morris' 10th field goal of the season, a 25-yarder with 5:50 left in the third quarter. Marsh also nearly took a kickoff return the distance, 75 yards to the Brave 25. Sadly, Tabor got nothing out of its best starting spot of the game.
Already last week, the Bluejays and McCarty knew they couldn't afford another five turnover outing like the one they endured a week earlier at St. Mary.
Not against the Braves.
Much to the Bluejays' chagrin, lightning hit them again against the Braves as Ottawa forced a repeat performance for Tabor miscues.
The first one happened after the Bluejays gulped down 6:00 of the clock on their first possession, driving 54 yards to the Ottawa 26 in 11 plays before Ishida lost the ball on fourth-and-four.
Controlling the clock the first half, Tabor drove the ball on 13, 12, and 10 play drives, too, only to have them extinguished by a turnover or having to punt.
"Even I was in shock at halftime when I looked at the drive charts," McCarty said. "We had a 13, 12, 11 and a 10 I was like gosh we've been moving the ball that well, and we didn't have any points. In football, if you work hard, that paycheck is going to be a touchdown. We were working, but we weren't getting a paycheck."
When Ward and the Braves couldn't pick up a first down, their 6-6 305-pound punter Mitchell Johnson pinned the Bluejays deep with a booming kick.
His longest, 61 yards, was done with Bluejay secondary CJ Hill hanging on to the mammoth.
Johnson punted the ball seven times for an amazing 301 yards.
Ward broke the shutout with 10:42 left in the first half, taking it in 57 yards off left guard.
Owning the ball nearly 10:00 longer than the Braves while racking up 207 yards to Ottawa's 159, Tabor was down 7-0 at halftime.
Going one-for-seven on third down conversions while managing a quartet of first downs, Tabor's defense tents pitched on the field the second half.
"You've got to finish and put the ball in against a good team," McCarty said. "We didn't and we had plenty of opportunities. That isn't a winning statistic (third down conversions) by any means."
Ward's second score could vie for time on ESPN's Sportscenter and it couldn't have come in any worse field position than what it did for the Bluejays.
One of the two fumbles in the second half for Tabor gave Ottawa first-and-goal at the three.
Two plays later, Ward broke the Bluejays' backs leaping straight into the air over Tabor's front wall and landing on his feet in the end zone.
Playing his final game at Reimer Field, senior quarterback Dave Hernandez returned late in the game.
By that time, Tabor needed John Elway or Dan Marino with the game sealed up 27-3 after two more Ward scores.
Another sore spot for the Bluejays was having running back Dwayne Cleaves banged up.
Without him, Tabor's ground game the second half was non-existent, finishing with six yards and 81 yards on the day.
If the Braves hadn't frustrated Tabor enough, they even tried taking another crack at the end zone before time ran out.
The 7-1, 16th ranked Bluejays can still make their first ever playoff appearance.
Tabor must win Saturday in hostile Winfield against Southwestern and beat McPherson there next week.
