Playoff loss heartbreaking for Wheaton College
Fifteen minutes was never going to be enough time for Wheaton College's 14-12 NCAA Division III football playoff defeat against John Carroll University to sink in for the Thunder.
"It's hard to lose, man," Thunder coach Mike Swider said, the pain of the season-ending second-round loss evident in his voice and on his face at the postgame press conference. "It's really, really hard to lose. It's hard to lose when you play well enough to win, and we did it. You could pick out plays, and yada, yada, yada, and they could pick out some too. But we were a good enough football team to win the game."
Except for problems in the kicking game, the Thunder might have won Saturday's game at McCully Stadium in Wheaton. After the Thunder's first extra-point attempt was blocked, Wheaton (11-1) went for 2 after its second TD but came up short. Forced to go for the end zone, the Thunder scored on just 2 of 5 trips inside the John Carroll 20-yard line.
"We just didn't make plays when we had to," Thunder quarterback Johnny Peltz (Wheaton North) said. "We had a good game plan, good plays to call. Just execution. You've got to score when you get into the red zone. It's really important. Two for five, it's not great, so I obviously wish we could've done better. The guys left nothing on the field. They gave everything they had."
On its last possession the Thunder drove from its own 34-yard line to the John Carroll 29. Facing fourth and 10, Swider opted for a 46-yard field goal. It was blocked, but an offsides penalty gave the Thunder another chance 5 yards closer. This time it went wide left with 1:07 to play. John Carroll ran out the clock to end the game.
"I had some thoughts (of going for the first down)," Swider said. "... You've got to try to win the game with a field goal at that point, and it didn't happen, man. It just didn't happen, for whatever reason."
John Carroll opened the scoring with running back Tommy Michals' 1-yard touchown run in the first quarter. Wheaton bounced back when running back Danny Puknaitis (Naperville North) scored on his own 1-yard run in the second quarter. The Thunder trailed 7-6 at halftime.
John Carroll (11-1), averaging 49.8 points a game, scored another TD in the third quarter on a 22-yard pass to Zach Strippy from Mark Myers.
Peltz threw a 3-yard TD pass to Zach Lindquist with 3:37 left in the third, but his pass on the 2-point conversion failed, setting up the desperate final drive a quarter later.
"When you lose like that, it's like your heart just gets cut right out of you," Swider said. "And I just feel terrible for our players, feel terrible for our seniors. The only thing that heals this is time."
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