MSU unbeaten no more in football

By Shane Frederick

ST. CLOUD — Looking to complete a perfect the season, the fourth-ranked Minnesota State football team hardly played a perfect game Saturday afternoon at Husky Stadium.

In a stunning, 26-21 loss to arch-rival St. Cloud State — their first defeat of the season — the Mavericks committed four turnovers, gave up four sacks and allowed a 95-yard, game-winning touchdown drive over the final five minutes.

“We beat ourselves; that’s the way I look at it,” said freshman running back Jake Aberg, who was the game’s top rusher with 148 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries. “We turned over the ball in the red zone. We couldn’t get going when we needed to. St. Cloud played us fantastic.”

Minnesota State, which finished the regular season with a 10-1 record (9-1 in NSIC) not only lost the Traveling Training Kit, which goes to the winner of the Mavericks-Huskies game each season, but lost a share of the NSIC title and, quite likely, a first-round bye in the NCAA tournament, which begins next weekend.

“This will be very humbling,” MSU coach Todd Hoffner said. “We have to regroup and play hard.”

Postseason brackets will be unveiled today, and, according to Hoffner, the Mavericks likely will play a first-round game at home on Saturday.

“This shows that we’re not invincible,” said running back Julian Phipps, who had 100 yards and two touchdowns on 14 carries. “Coach tells us that all the time, but we got it served to us on a platter today.”

The Mavericks trailed for much of the first half and the third quarter before an Aberg 7-yard touchdown run and a Sam Brockshus extra-point kick gave them a 21-20 lead on the second play of the fourth quarter.

But they couldn’t close the game or the unbeaten season.

Aberg fumbled on the Mavericks’ next possession, and, later, a 10-play drive stalled at the 29-yard line after quarterback Steve Pachan left the game with a leg injury. A pooch punt was downed at the 5-yard-line with 5:15 to play.

St. Cloud, which gained just three second-half first downs until that point, constructed a 10-play, 95-yard drive that ended with a 3-yard touchdown run by Dante Steward, who started his career at Minnesota State, with 57 seconds remaining.

“It’s a coincidence that I scored the game winning touchdown,” said Steward, who spent two seasons at MSU. “Punching it in right there was special.”

The Huskies’ final drive included a 41-yard pass from Derek Stripling to Tyler Allery.

“That was a killer,” Hoffner said. “That was a great drive by the Huskies. Obviously, with that kind of drive, late in the game, you deserve to win.”

Working with a short field for much of the first half, thanks to four sacks of Pachan and a long kick return by Fred Williams, the Huskies scored touchdowns on their first three possessions to take a 20-7 lead early in the second quarter.

Stripling scored on runs of 9 yards and 1 yard and tossed a touchdown pass to Allery.

Keeping the ball on the ground was the key for the Mavericks, who had 286 yards rushing.

On a first-quarter touchdown, the Mavericks ran the ball on all 10 plays, and capped the 65-yard drive with a Julian Phipps 1-yard touchdown run. And after finally forcing the Huskies to punt midway through the second quarter, Phipps busted off a 34-yard dash that set up a 15-yard touchdown run three plays later.

Minnesota State looked like it was going in for the tying score late in the second quarter when Ernest Walker was stripped of the ball at the 1-yard-line, and the Huskies recovered the fumble in the end zone for a touchback.

During a third-quarter drive, the Mavericks drove to the Huskes 6-yard line, but two penalties drove them back to the 20 before St. Cloud safety Tyler Niedfeldt intercepted a Pachan pass at the 1.

“Simply, (the Huskies) got it done,” Phipps said. “On offense and defense, they got it done. They did what they had to do, and we didn’t.”

The Mavericks will find out their postseason fate at 2 p.m. today when the NCAA tournament brackets are released during a broadcast on ESPNews. A viewing party open to the public will begin at 1:30 p.m. at the downtown-Mankato Buffalo Wild Wings.