maly, too: Record-Setting Piatkowski Leads Drake To 28-25 Victory Over Morehead State

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Record-Setting Piatkowski Leads Drake To 28-25 Victory Over Morehead State

In a battle of two top-10 passing offenses, Drake's football team outdueled Morehead State on a record-setting Saturday afternoon at Drake Stadium.

Led by fifth-year senior quarterback Mike Piatkowski (Wheaton, Ill.), the Bulldogs (2-2, 1-0 PFL) fought off a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter to top the Eagles, 28-25. Piatkowski set the school record for career passing yards in the second quarter with a five-yard completion to senior Joey Orlando (Park Ridge, Ill.). Piatkowski needed just 31 yards coming in to the game to surpass Ira Vandever’s record of 7,868 yards set in 2002. The reigning PFL Offensive Player of the Year finished the game with 29-for-41 passing, for 268 yards and three touchdowns. He now stands alone at 8,106 career passing yards.

“I try not to think about it [the record],” Piatkowski said after the game. “At the end of the season, I’ll probably think about it, but we got a win today and that’s all that matters. It was a team effort and the crowd was a big part of that.”

Orlando was Piatkowski’s top target on the day, with eight receptions for 73 yards and a touchdown. Sophomore Gary Scott, Jr. (Forsyth, Ill.) led the ground game with 119 yards on 28 carries and one touchdown.

Defensively, the Bulldogs shut down the sixth-ranked passing offense of the Eagles. Despite only recording one sack on the afternoon, the Bulldogs held the Eagles to a season low 172 pass yards. Sophomore John Hugunin (Oswego, Ill.) led the defense with 16 tackles and one sack. Junior Travis Merritt (Johnston, Iowa) added 14 additional tackles to the defensive total.

Drake used an eight-play, 74-yard drive at the beginning of the fourth quarter to regain momentum lost in the third quarter. The drive concluded with a Piatkowski touchdown pass to sophomore J.T. Teague (Carrollton, Texas) to bring the Bulldogs within three points with 13 minutes remaining in the game.

After the Drake defense came up strong on the following MSU possession, sophomore Drew Ormseth (Lake in the Hills, Ill.) set the offense up with great field position following his 36-yard punt return. Piatkowski then gave the Blue and White its first lead of the game, 21-17, with 9:51 remaining in the game, by finding senior Nick Rosa (Owasso, Okla.) in the end zone.

Drake all but sealed the victory with four minutes remaining in the game, converting on 4^th-and-2 from the 14-yard line. Scott took an option pitch into the end zone to give Drake a two-score lead. With the run, Drake’s leading rusher recorded the second 100-yard game of his career.

“We kind of had to have a wake-up call there late,” head coach Chris Creighton said. “I don’t know that we played any differently in the fourth quarter outside of there being some passion and imposing our will.”

Although Morehead State countered with a six-play, 62-yard drive that resulted in a touchdown, they could not recover the onside kick, allowing Drake to bleed the clock to 1:28. Despite sustaining a drive to midfield, Lewis was picked by fifth-year senior Tyler Moorehead (Mason City, Iowa) with 36 seconds remaining on the clock to put an end to any chance at a comeback.

Morehead State deviated from its typical passing offense early, instead opting for the rushing game on the opening drive. That strategy worked, as the Eagles pounded their way down the field before turning to the aerial attack on a 26-yard pass play from senior Zach Lewis to Donte Sawyer to cap an 11-play, 81-yard drive.

It would take the Bulldogs until late in the second quarter to respond to the Eagles’ score when Piatkowski connected with Orlando for nine yards immediately following a fumble recovery by fifth-year senior Anthony Gianaras (Mundelein, Ill).

Despite fielding two top-ten passing offenses, the defenses shined in the first half. At the break both teams were off their offensive pace as Drake had 135 yards through the air, with the majority coming in the second quarter, while Morehead State had only 54 through the half. Instead, both teams utilized the running game to create a 7-7 tie at the half.

However, Morehead State took control of the momentum in the third quarter by taking a 17-7 advantage by the end of the quarter. Morehead State linebacker Jordan Hendrix took advantage of a rare Piatkowski mistake with an interception to set up the Eagles’ offense in prime position. Hendrix returned his interception 25-yards before lateralling the ball to John Coleman who added seven-yards to the return total. MSU executed two plays later on a 27-yard rush by Brandon Bornhauser out of the Wildcat offense to set up the finall fourth quarter sequence.

The Bulldogs continue PFL next weekend when they travel to Buies Creek, N.C., to face Campbell University. Kickoff is scheduled for 5 p.m. CDT.

[This story was written for Ron Maly by Ty Patton, Drake's assistant athletic director for athletic communications].

JOLTIN' JOE GOT IT STARTED

When Ron Maly was a kid in Cedar Rapids, he wanted to enter an essay contest, and he did. He wrote about Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees being his favorite baseball player. For finishing second in the contest, Ron won a Louisville Slugger baseball bat autographed by DiMaggio. Ron later wanted to be the first person in his family to attend college, and he was. He earned a degree in political science from the University of Iowa, and did what all political science majors do. He became a sportswriter. He had, after all, covered high school football, basketball and baseball games for the Cedar Rapids Gazette while he worked parttime during his university days. Ron wanted to sit in the press box and write about an Iowa-Minnesota football game, and he did. It happened while he was the sports editor at the Albert Lea [Minn.] Tribune, and the game was at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Ron wanted to cover a World Series, and he did. Also when he was working for the Albert Lea newspaper. Ron wanted to cover Rose Bowls, Sugar Bowls, Orange Bowls, Cotton Bowls, Holiday Bowls, a Freedom Bowl, a Sun Bowl, a Super Bowl and NCAA basketball tournaments, and he did those things after he moved to Des Moines. Ron was a four-time sportswriter of the Year in the state of Iowa [the years were 1977, 1978, 1994 and 1996]. In 2006, he was named a charter member of the University of Iowa's media Wall of Fame in the Kinnick Stadium press box. A photo of the plaque that's displayed in the press box is displayed above this story. Following Ron's retirement from the newspaper business, a publisher asked him if he wanted to write a book about the rich football tradition at the University of Iowa, and he did. The hardback version of "Tales from the Iowa Sidelines" was a best-seller, and so was the revised, softback version. Now he's been asked by his publisher to update the book for a second time. He's in the process of doing that at the present time. Ron considers being asked to update a best-selling book for the second time to be the supreme compliment, considering the Hawkeyes won just four games in the 2012 season. When Ron isn't working on books, he's busy traveling and spending time with his family. Indeed, he attends the athletic, theatrical and musical [both vocal and instrumental] events in which his six grandchildren participate. He also writes about anything that interests him for his many websites. Every chance he gets, Ron proudly wears his America Needs Farmers T-shirt.

The Hawkeyes' Rich Football Tradition, Revisited

I mentioned a while back that I was in the process of updating my Tales from the Iowa Sidelines book. Updating it for the second time. The original hardback edition of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines [pictured at the right] was published in 2003, during the 10-3 season, when coach Kirk Ferentz and his Iowa football team had a 10-3 record that included a 37-17 victory over 15th-ranked Florida in the Outback Bowl and after the Hawkeyes went 11-2 in 2002. That book was a best-seller, so the publishers came to me again in 2005, a season that finished with a breathtaking 30-25 victory over No. 11 Louisiana State in the Capital One Bowl on New Year's Day, 2005. Because buyers had cleaned out the the shelves in the bookstores, the publishers wanted to know if I'd do an updated version of the book. I agreed, The revised, soft-cover edition [pictured at the left] was published in 2005. Warren Holloway, who teamed with quarterback Drew Tate on a miraculous 56-yard touchdown pass to win the Capital One Bowl, was featured on the cover. That book, too, turned into a best-seller, So I had reason to feel very good about my years as a published author. It's not every day that a the original version is a best-seller, and so is the updated version. Then, imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a senior editor at the publishing company last fall, wanting wanted to know if I was interested in doing a second updated version of the book. It came at a time when things weren't going well for the Hawkeyes in the 2012 season. They lost their last six games and finished with a 4-8 record. Frankly, the thought of doing a revised edition of the book during a 4-8 season seemed to be a stretch. "Maybe producing a revised edition in a year or two would be a better idea," I told the publishers. "We'd like to do it now," I was told. "Let me think about it," I said. After a few days of thought, I accepted the idea. I talked myself into the idea that this was the supreme compliment--being asked to do a second book update during a 4-8 season showed strong confidence by the publishers in me and in the Hawkeyes' football program. So I got back into the business of interviewing players and coaches again, going to postgame press conferences, weekly press conferences and a scrimmage in West Des Moines. After a press conference in Iowa City, I did a one-on-one interview with coach Kirk Ferentz, and mentioned to him that I was in the process of doing a revised edition of my two best-selling books. I congratulated him on the excellent things he had done for Iowa's football program--all of which contributed to the success of my books. "I think Coach Fry had more to do with it," he told me, bringing up the name of Hayden Fry, his one-time boss at Iowa and a man who brought Iowa's football program back from the dead in the 20th century. That's modest Kirk Ferentz for you. Even though the 2012 season wasn't something Hawkeye coaches, players and fans will recall with any special feeling, Ferentz has a 14-year record of 100-74 at Iowa that includes two 11-victory seasons [2002 smd 2009], two 10-victory seasons [2003 and 2004], plus he's been the Big Ten coach of year in 2002, 2004 and 2009, and national coach of the year in 2002. Indeed, Ferentz has done some wonderful things at Iowa City, and I fully expect his success to continue. I've concluded my writing for the second update of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines, and the senior editor has furnished me with an early look at the book. Not only are the Kirk Ferentz years included in the updated version, but so is the stuff I previously wrote about Howard Jones, Dr. Eddie Anderson, Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Hawkeye Ironmen, Ronald Reagan, Ozzie Simmons, Ossie Solem, Randy Duncan, Alex Karras and lots of other legends from Iowa's rich football history. I expect the book to be in stores soon. I hope you like it.