Stunned Pirates Face Old Nemesis In Stiff Road Test

The Whitworth College football team will try again Saturday, but don’t look for things to get any easier.

The Pirates will play defending Northwest Conference champion Pacific Lutheran on the artificial turf of Sparks Stadium in Puyallup, Wash.

The Lutes, who are celebrating homecoming, own a 30-game winning streak over Whitworth and lead the series 41-12.

You have to go back to 1965 to read about the last time Whitworth beat PLU, 20-13. In the 1990s, the Lutes have defeated the Pirates by an average of 26 points per game.

The Pirates (3-2, 1-1), riding high the first month of the season, are coming off a deflating 31-7 loss to Linfield. The Lutes (3-1, 0-1) also lost Saturday, 29-20 to Willamette, after turning the ball over five times. The loss dropped the Lutes from No. 14 to No. 25 in the AFCA Top 25 poll.

“They run a wide-open offense,” Whitworth coach John Tully said. “Their offensive scheme causes other teams a lot of problems defensively because they give you so many looks.< “Defensively, they are very aggressive and they always play exceptionally well on artificial turf.”

The Pirates must guard against senior fullback Anthony Hicks, a University of Washington transfer who gained 136 yards and scored two touchdowns in last year’s 34-20 PLU win at the Pine Bowl.

Although Hicks was held to 68 yards Saturday, he remains second to Whitworth’s Damian Putney (145) in the conference with an average of 140 yards per game.

Whitworth struggled through its worst offensive day of the season against Linfield. The Wildcats held the Pirates to 141 yards total offense. The Pirates had been averaging 407 yards per game.