The Hillsdale College Chargers finished their 125th season of football with a resounding 54-0 whitewash on the road against Lake Erie College on Saturday.
The shutout was the Chargers’ third of the year. Hillsdale finishes its season with four consecutive victories and a 7-4 record, its best mark since 2012. The Chargers went 5-2 in the G-MAC and finished third in the conference. Their conference losses were against Ohio Dominican University and the University of Findlay, the top two teams in the G-MAC.
“We had a goal to win the conference, so we fell short of that,” head coach Keith Otterbein said. “But we were close to that, so there’s positive feelings about the season. You’d certainly like to have a shot at Ohio Dominican and Findlay with the team we had ready on Saturday against Lake Erie.”
Hillsdale once again got off to a hot start on both sides of the ball, with the offense scoring on its opening drive for a fourth consecutive week. The defense forced five three-and-outs to begin the game before finally allowing a first down late in the second quarter.
“We speak a lot about getting to game speed right away,” Otterbein said. “There is certainly a different tempo from a practice to the intensity of a game-day football game. That speaks to our team believing in that, taking that to heart, accepting it, and doing a good job of executing at a high level right out of the gate.”
Sophomore running back David Graham enjoyed a career day, scoring five total touchdowns. He carried the ball 13 times for 167 yards and touchdown rushes of 12, 23, 60, and 11 yards. He also caught one pass for a 53-yard touchdown.
“Getting through the line is the first part,” Graham said of the long touchdown scores. “Our linemen did a fantastic job Saturday. The second part is just reading the defense and how you’ve got to weave through them. It was a lot of instinct. Our receivers blocked well down field too.”
Last season, Graham saw minimal action on the field in his true freshman season. This year, he was thrust into the starting role at running back. Graham finished the year with a conference-best 18 rushing touchdowns. He also surpassed the 1,000 yard mark for rushing yards on Saturday, finishing with 1,050 total yards in 2017.
“I think I became more calm in clutch moments,” Graham said of the leap from his freshman to sophomore season. “I worked on my open-field moves a little more. Hopefully I can go into the offseason working on that a little bit too, to add that to my game. Just little things, like lowering your shoulder if you’re going to get tackled. I started thinking about the little things more throughout the year.”
Junior quarterback Chance Stewart completed 14 of 19 passes for 146 yards and an interception. Sophomore quarterback Steven Ficyk relieved Stewart midway through the third quarter and completed 5 of 6 passes for 164 yards and two touchdowns, the first to Graham and the second to freshman wide receiver Konnor Maloney. The 67-yard touchdown reception was the second of the season for Maloney.
Hillsdale’s top-ranked rush defense held the Storm to just 89 total yards of offense. The Chargers were especially stingy in the running game, allowing just 16 yards on 29 rushing attempts.
“All they really do is run the ball,” sophomore linebacker Dan Shanley said. “That’s their main focus on offense. We really stressed that a lot this week. Our main priority was definitely stopping the run. We had a little bit of a chip on our shoulder because we knew where we were ranked in the conference, so we wanted to keep that and wanted to pitch another shutout. It was definitely a good way to end.”
Shanley led the defense with nine total tackles, and the unit as a whole collected a season-high 16 tackles for loss.
“A big part of that was our defensive line really owned the line of scrimmage,” Shanley said. “When our D-line can do that, you kind of have a field day like we did. There was really nowhere for their running backs to go other than down.”
Hillsdale finished the season best in the conference in rushing yards allowed per game and per carry, as well as total touchdowns allowed. The Chargers surrendered just 10 touchdowns in 11 games.
“We know a lot of teams in the conference have really strong offenses, and particularly, rushing offenses,” Shanley said. “That was definitely a point of emphasis for us, because when you stop the run it’s harder for teams to pass the ball. We changed our scheme up a little bit in the spring, and I think that definitely showed how effective that was in the fall.”
Redshirt freshman kicker Joe Philipp made both of his field goal attempts, including a career-long 48-yard field goal as time expired in the first half. Philipp’s efforts earned him the G-MAC Special Teams Player of the Week award.
“I was excited about that,” Philipp said. “It’s an individual award, but I couldn’t have done it without all my teammates — the whole line, my snapper and holder, they’ve been great the whole year. I really enjoyed playing with them.”
Philipp finishes the season with a conference-best 11 field goals, three more than the next most among G-MAC kickers. His 48-yard boot on Saturday was one yard shy of the conference record.
“I thought I improved a lot on field goals and extra points this year, just with ball contact and accuracy,” Philipp said. “I fixed a couple of things at the beginning of the year. I was a little off at the beginning of the year, and I felt really comfortable by the end of the year with those.”
In mid-October, the Chargers’ record stood at 3-4 after consecutive losses to Ohio Dominican and Findlay. The players rallied behind Otterbein’s call to finish 7-4 for the seniors, and the team delivered, outscoring its opponents 174-38 in its final four victories.
“Starting the season, we weren’t playing with a whole lot of confidence,” senior offensive lineman Danny Drummond said. “We knew what our goals were and what our expectations were, and that we had a lot of potential as a team. We didn’t really realize that potential until later in the season. By the end of the season, that’s when we started playing our best football. Hopefully for them going forward next year, they can have that confidence from the get-go and realize the potential of their team right off the bat.”
Drummond is one of four senior captains graduating, along with offensive lineman Jake Bull, defensive lineman Matt Hall, and linebacker Scotty Penola. Otterbein said while the leadership and influence of the seniors on and off the field is invaluable, he’s already looking forward to next season.
“There’s a lot of talent in this freshman class,” Otterbein said. “It’s tough to lose those seniors, but let’s get to spring ball and see what these freshmen can do.”
