Widener coach Mike Kelly. “…here we are in the elite eight. 247 teams started the season and there’s only eight playing today so I’m very proud of these young men.”

The Linfield College football team has earned their wings, for the second week in a row the Wildcats – who call McMinnville, OR home – won an NCAA Division III playoff game on the road. Saturday at Leslie C. Quick Jr. Stadium in Chester, they ended Widener’s season with a 45-7 win. Last week, the Wildcats upset highly ranked Mary Hardin-Baylor in Texas. Against Widener, Wildcats quarterback Sam Riddle had five touchdown passes. The first two were set up by miscues as the Pride dug a hole from which they couldn’t recover. In their first four possessions, Widener had a snap go over the punters head, threw two interceptions and committed a fumble.

“We didn’t help ourselves early and I was thinking about the 1993 Gray Cup,” said Pride head coach Mike Kelly, who was offensive coordinator for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers when they lost the 1993 Gray Cup to Edmonton. “We started the game with a snap over the punter’s head and it went down hill from there. They’re a good football. They were better than us today.”

It didn’t immediately go down hill for the Pride, their defense had a goal line stand and got the ball back for the offense without allowing a score. However, quarterback Seth Klein’s pass on third down from the Pride eight was tipped and intercepted by cornerback Kennedy Johnson. Three plays later, running back Spencer Payne scored from 11 yards out on a screen pass. Klein’s next pass was also intercepted. He under a heavy rush all day by the Wildcats, who were third in the nation coming in sacks per game with a 4.0 average. They nearly doubled their average with seven. Defensive end Alex Hoff had 4.5 sacks himself.

“Our defensive front is quite good,” said Linfield head coach Joseph Smith. “They were able to get pressure when needed and that’s difficult to overcome on offense when you’re giving up pressure. That’s something every defense wants to to and we were able to do that.”

After the interception, Linfield got the ball at midfield and converted the turnover into points when Riddle connected with wide receiver Evan Peterson for a 22-yard touchdown.

Early in the second quarter, the Pride showed some life when cornerback Ameer Sorrell intercepted a Riddle pass and returned it 63 yards to the Wildcats 33. Widener would convert a fourth-and-four to keep the drive alive. Also, Terrant Morrison would set up his two-yard touchdown run with a 23-yard scamper and it was 14-7.

The Wildcats made the lead 14 again when wide receiver Charlie Poppen out jumped the Widener defensive back to complete a 44-yard scoring play.

The back breaking score might have been a five yard catch by Peterson just before halftime.

“We like to finish each half very strong,” said the senior from Bellevue, WA. “I had a good opportunity to go up and make a play for our team. When we’re in the red zone, we like to take care of business and that’s what we did.”

With the score still 28-7 at the end of the third quarter, all you needed to know about the day could be told by the body language of the players. The Wildcats were driving when the quarter ended and their offense went to the sideline jumping up and down and holding up four fingers while the Widener defense walked, heads down.

For the Wildcats, they move on to the semifinals – after losing in the quarterfinal round the last two seasons – to face Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Kelly summed up the season for the Pride.

“The bad thing about being in the NCAA Tournament,” he said, “is there’s only one team that’s going to win. You can’t lose sight of the fact that we’re the undefeated Middle Atlantic Conference Champions, we finished the season ranked tenth in the country and here we are in the elite eight. 247 teams started the season and there’s only eight playing today so I’m very proud of these young men.”

Email Rock Hoffman at Rock@footballstories.com