Carroll wins 3rd straight title
Carroll’s best pass all season was incomplete.
Holder Zach Bumgarner spiked the ball after a bad field-goal snap on first down, and Gonzaga Prep High School graduate Marcus Miller kicked a 32-yard field goal on the next play with 10 seconds left to give Carroll a 15-13 victory over St. Francis (Indiana) and its third straight NAIA championship on Saturday in Savannah, Tenn.
“Everything happened so fast, I just threw it down,” Bumgarner said.
Chris Bramell gave St. Francis (13-1) a 13-12 lead on a 1-yard touchdown plunge with 1:13 left to complete a 17-play, 89-yard drive. But enough time remained for Tyler Emmert to drive Carroll (12-2) down the field without a timeout.
“It hit me as I sent the play in,” St. Francis coach Kevin Donley said. “We should have just taken a knee there and taken another 30 or 40 seconds off.”
Emmert went 3 for 4 for 49 yards and scrambled for 11 more on the final drive to put Miller in position to win the game, but not before Bumgarner’s play.
“I thought we’d have to run for it before he threw the incomplete pass,” Miller said. He had started sprinting to the left on the play, unaware that Bumgarner spiked the ball.
Instead, Miller got to line up for the field goal again, and he raised his arms for joy after the kick.
“Once it left my foot, I knew it was good,” said Miller, a freshman.
Division III
Linfield showed it’s no one-man band.
Riley Jenkins turned a swing pass into a go-ahead touchdown with 5:51 to play as the Wildcats capped a perfect season with their first NCAA Division III national championship, beating Mary Hardin-Baylor 28-21 in Salem, Va.
The scoring pass was the second of the game for Brett Elliott and his NCAA-record 61st of the season, but the defensive play that set it up was every bit as important for the team from McMinnville, Ore., and the Northwest Conference.
“The offense has gotten a lot of the publicity, but there’s no question that to see the defense step up today and make big plays allowed us to win as a team,” Linfield coach Jay Locey said.
The 10-yard score came one play after the Wildcats stymied the Crusaders on their 18 and Zach Fleming disrupted Hunter Hamrick’s punt attempt, causing Hamrick to fumble the ball and fall on it on his 10.
Linfield had the break it needed to end what had become a defensive struggle between two of Division III’s highest scoring teams.
The Wildcats wasted no time.
On the next play, Elliott hit Jenkins out of the backfield. Jenkins made a one-handed grab, eluded two defenders down the sideline and dove into the end zone, the margin Linfield needed to cap a 13-0 season.
Elliott finished 20 for 34 for 282 yards with two interceptions. He also threw a swing pass that Brandon Hazenberg turned into a 39-yard touchdown on the third play of the game.
Mary Hardin-Baylor (13-2) had tied the game with 9:01 remaining on Freddie Rollins’ 18-yard run and his two-point conversion run.