Daily News-Record

LLIANCE, Ohio - The sun didn't shine in Alliance, Ohio.

All year, Bridgewater College quarterback Brandon Wakefield, known to teammates as "Sunshine," made the plays that helped bring the Eagles to the brink of the Stagg Bowl.

But Saturday, Wakefield unleashed a throw that turned BC from underdog to overwhelmed as mighty Mount Union crushed the Eagles 66-0 to advance to the national-title game.

"I even had my mother take a picture of the final scoreboard," Wakefield said. "I'm going to look at it every day."

For a Bridgewater team that had won nine straight games coming in and an Eagles senior class that had lost just five times in four years, it was a stunning result.

"Candidly, I'm shocked," said BC coach Michael Clark.

And it all started when Mount Union's Adrew Doak stepped in front of Wakefield's first-quarter pass intended for Nick Lehto. Lehto was curling back toward the sideline at the Eagles' 20-yard-line when Doak jumped the route and started the rout, racing 16 yards to the end zone.

"I just tried to force it into the flats," a forlorn Wakefield, a junior, said afterward. "That's something Coach always tells me not to do."

From there, a painful truth played out on a chilly stage. In the south end zone of Mount Union Stadium, the oldest football facility in Ohio, hung a banner that read, "Welcome to the Machine."

The machine turned to be a grinder. The Purple Raiders handed BC its biggest loss since 1999 and equaled their own largest margin of victory this season.

Mount Union, now winners of 55 straight and the odds-on favorite to claim its fourth consecutive Division III national championship this weekend, proved to be every bit as good as the numbers indicated.

This time, the hype didn't lie.

"We've seen the standard," Clark said. "And it's a high one."

Mount Union is the gold standard of Division III sports and the blueprint for dominating college football. But Raiders coach Larry Kehres - who admitted he was "surprised" by the final margin - downplayed the streak.

"It's really a weekly thing," Kehres said about winning 55 straight. "We can't even remember those games."

He must have no recollection, then, of his previous streak. From 1996-99, Mount Union won 54 straight before losing to Rowan in the 1999 semifinal. The Mount hasn't lost since.

Saturday, as the Raiders piled up 476 yards, forced four turnovers, blocked two punts and racked up several school and Division III records, it became easy to lose sight of Bridgewater's accomplishments.

"There's a big picture and a small picture, and the small picture stinks," Clark said. "We embarrassed ourselves. None of us are proud of what we did today."

Buried under the 66-point avalanche was the fact that Bridgewater is probably a bunch better than Saturday's game showed, and a whole lot better than when Clark took over nine seasons ago. After all, when the team went 0-10 in 1998, Clark's fourth year at BC, reaching a national semifinal must have seemed unfathomable.

Since then, Clark has built BC into a Division III powerhouse - not near the juggernaut Kehres has in Alliance, but a powerhouse nonetheless. In 2001, he took the Eagles to the Stagg Bowl, where they lost 30-27 to Mount Union. No team has scored that many points against the Purple Raiders since.

But for the BC seniors - kids in their 20s who have been taught losing isn't an option - the dismantling was painful.

With seniors Gary Nelson and Jermaine Taylor seated next to him, Clark tried to interject some perspective. In time, he said, the seniors would look back at their 12-2 season with pride.

"That's nice," Nelson said. "But we ended it wrong. It's not how you start, it's how you finish."

And the finish wasn't pretty.

It was perhaps symbolic that Bridgewater defensive back Steward White, who had given BC hope by picking off a deep pass on Mount Union's first possession, limped out of the stadium on crutches after being injured in the third quarter.

Even guard Dustin Newman's Mohawk seemed flattened - beaten down - by the fourth quarter.

For his part, Sunshine stayed positive as long as he could. As he ran off the field at halftime - trailing 35-0 - he pumped his helmet in the air, exhorting the sizeable crowd of BC fans to cheer.

But by the time Mount Union put its last points on the board - a 21-yard field goal that Kehres ordered on second down in a desperate attempt to avoid scoring 70 points - Wakefield was dejected.

He stood, arms stuffed in his hand warmer, eyes scanning the ground, feet kicking at the turf.

After the game, though the photograph of the scoreboard hadn't been developed yet, Wakefield already knew what he'd see in it.

"It's definitely motivation for us," he said, a long winter, spring and summer looming.
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Record Number: 109E394BF79394C8