The Chargers came out of the gates strong on Saturday night, but couldn’t keep up the pace.
After the Hillsdale College football team took an early 7-0 lead, the Indianapolis Greyhounds rattled off 38 unanswered points to rout the Chargers 38-7 at Frank “Muddy” Waters Stadium.
“We missed some open receivers, we missed some field goals, and they got some big plays on us,” head coach Keith Otterbein said. “Once you miss those opportunities the whole surface of the game changes. The momentum swings and there you go.”
The Chargers entered halftime down 17-7 and set to receive the ball to start the second half. Hillsdale’s offense drove down into field goal range, and junior kicker Steven Mette, who had missed his first two field goal attempts, came onto the field on fourth-and-10 to try a 46-yard field goal to cut the deficit to just a touchdown.
But the Greyhounds blocked the kick and returned it to Hillsdale’s 38-yard line. The very next play Indianapolis scored a touchdown, and just like that it was 24-7.
“It was one of those games where the scoreboard made it look a lot worse than it felt out on the field,” senior left guard Justice Karmie said. “It wasn’t that we were having trouble moving the ball, it wasn’t anything special that they were doing. They’re good, but we just did not finish.”
The Chargers finished with 326 yards of offense but struggled to convert third downs in Greyhounds territory.
“Offensively, we definitely had some missed opportunities early on that could have changed things,” said senior quarterback CJ Mifsud, who scored the Chargers’ lone touchdown on a 1-yard rush. “I didn’t do a good job of executing when the team needed me to.”
Defensively, the Chargers struggled against the Greyhounds’ potent combo of quarterback Connor Barthel and wide receiver Reece Horn. Barthel completed 23 of his 29 pass attempts for 297 yards and three touchdowns. Horn caught two of those touchdowns and finished with 153 receiving yards.
The Greyhounds didn’t punt the football until the fourth quarter on two fourth-and-short situations when the game was out of reach. Otterbein, who is a good friend of Indianapolis head coach Bob Bartolomeo, thought Bartolomeo was being a good sportsman.
“I felt like they maybe called off the dogs a little bit there at the end. They could have maybe, against a different guy, finished on the plus side of 50,” Otterbein said. “He knew the game was in hand and did that part of it so afterwards I texted him and told him that I understood that and appreciated it.”
Otterbein encouraged his players in their first team meeting after Saturday’s loss on Monday night, according to Karmie.
“The first thing he said as he walks in the meeting,” Karmie said, “he goes, ‘I still love you guys. And I still love my job. Losing sucks. That’s the bottom line. And we’re not okay with that and we’re never going to be okay with that.’”
Looking to bounce back from their toughest defeat of the season, the Chargers face their toughest opponent of the season on Saturday night at 7 p.m.
Hillsdale will clash with the Grand Valley Lakers on their homecoming night in front of a sold-out crowd at Arend D. Lubbers Stadium.
“That is the best environment you’re going to find anywhere in Division II football,” Karmie said. “We’re going to get harassed by the student section up there. They’re going to know our names, they’re going to know our parents’ names, our ex-girlfriends, that’s how it is, but we’re going up there for a business trip to play football and so playing in that environment just makes it that much more fun.”
Otterbein knows his team can’t make the same mistakes they made last week if they want to emerge victorious.
“Grand Valley is always very talented so we know we’ve got an uphill battle when it comes to the physical matchups,” Otterbein said. “Now we’ve got to make sure we’re doing our job and we’re playing really hard and making our own breaks when it comes to how the football game develops.”
