Midwest Crowded

(Big crowd for Minnesota v. Wisconsin. The Badgers, in white, came back to beat the Gophers at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. Rob Wagner, www.dropkickphotos.com)

By Alex Goff

Wisconsin made quite the statement this weekend in the Midwest men's DI College competition, and in doing so are now in first place in the Midwest Western Conference.

Meanwhile Ohio State kept just ahead of Bowling Green with a 30-7 defeat of Purdue.

OSU is 3-0 in the Midwest's Eastern Conference, as is as is BGSU, 31-21 winners of Indiana.

Meanwhile Wisconsin is all alone on top of the Western Conference with their 19-15 upset of Minnesota, played in front of 2,000 at UM's TCF Bank Stadium.

That game was played at the UM football field, and featured a try by USA U20 lock Andrew Hanske in his hometown, on his birthday. Good day for Hanske, and for his Wisconsin team as well.

"We did OK at the Big 10 tournament and after that felt we could compete at this level," said Badger head coach Skip Heffernan, whose team moved up from DII after making the national DII final last season. "The key for us is to stay focused and play good defense."

New to DI, Wisconsin got three away games to start their season. They finished them off 3-0. Now they have two home games to wrap things up, and look in great shape for the playoffs.
 
"What I need to do is go back to the video of our scrimmage against UW-Whitewater and show the guys how bad we looked just to remind them," said Heffernan. That, he said, should keep them humble.

Also this weekend in the Midwest, Iowa State improved to 1-2 with a 39-5 defeat of Illinois. Things are of concern in Champaigne, as the Midwest tried to get Illinois to play Northern Iowa on Sunday to make up a rained out game. No go, as Illinois barely had 15 to play on Saturday and just went home.

Also in the Western, UW-Stout came back from a 19-0 deficit against Northern Iowa to dominate in the second half and win 41-19. Stout improves to 1-2.

But for Ohio State, this was another step in the young team's quest for a Midwest title.

The game started poorly for the Buckeyes. The opening kickoff hit the ground and rolled into the OSU 22. After micing the ball ahead for two phases, the Buckeyes attempted a clearing kick, only to see it charged down and taken in for a Purdue tri. This was not the first time OSU had had trouble with kick chargedowns, and coach Tom Rooney said he would be addressing in.

But Ohio State rebounded. They slotted a penalty a few minutes later, and then scored a well-taken try off a lineout. Center Spencer Dye, who had started so well this season and then pulled a hamstring, scored the try on his first game back from injury. Try-scoring hooker Matt Altieri then took over. He supported his centers and took an offload from center Chad Cochran to trundle in. It was Altieri again some minutes later when he broke a tackle and rumbled to the corner.

Flanker Eric Sanchez scored at the 40th minute from excellent support running off his centers.

That made it 25-7 at halftime, but with OSU going into the wind there was no chance of a blowout. Unable to kick far because of the wind the Buckeyes were content to keep the ball and serve out their time. Reserve flanker Kevin McNamara, in his first A-side game, capped off the scoring at the 28th minute as he finished off a long OSU movement that went through six sets of hands before they settled into his.

"I thought we played kind of flat and made some 50/50 decisions," said Rooney. "The blocked kick for a try was good aggressive play by Purdue, poor decision-making by us. But with that being said, we did manage to then hold the opponent scoreless the rest of the game. Very similar to the Notre Dame game."

UW-Stout is 1-2 after their comeback win (down 19-0 against UNI, Stout rallied to win 41-19). Notre Dame improves to 2-1 after beating Michigan on Friday 88-0.