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September 9, 2008

Taylor beats AU, reclaims the 'Wagon Wheel'

ANDERSON — “The field was ready, the lights were ready, but I guess we weren’t ready to play at that level,” said Anderson University football coach Jeff Judge after the Ravens’ home opener Saturday.

The Taylor Trojans erased a 10-0 deficit by scoring 27 straight points to claim the traditional Wagon Wheel with a 27-17 victory.

The contest was the first-ever night game at Macholtz Stadium on the new synthetic surface, and a nearly capacity crowd was on hand to witness the history. But the history book won’t reflect well on the young Ravens team.

AU yielded 451 yards of offense to the Trojans, who hadn’t beaten the Ravens on the gridiron in six years. The home team had 303 yards of total offense.

“Taylor was just more physical than we were,” said Judge. “We didn’t do a good job of stopping their running game. They came off the line really well.”

The Trojans’ offensive line opened holes to the tune of 213 yards for junior running back Josh Cook. Cook rushed for three touchdown runs of 8, 1 and 30 yards.

Taylor sophomore Shaun Addison completed 15 of 25 passes for 190 yards and one touchdown, that to Ryan Magnuson.

The Ravens opened the game by scoring the first 10 points in just under eight minutes off a pair of fumbles by the Trojans.

The first AU scoring drive took just under a minute and covered 42 yards, the final 22 on a run by Darryl Stott. The second scoring drive featured an eight-play drive covering 31 yards in just over three minutes. It was capped by a 31-yard field goal from Tristan Cork.

But from that point until the Ravens’ final scoring drive midway through the final quarter, AU failed to move the ball and kept its defense on the field far too long.

“We didn’t catch the ball as well as I thought we would,” said Judge of the many dropped balls on the evening. A dropped ball on fourth down near midfield effectively ended the home team’s final hope in the final two minutes of the contest.

“We also didn’t throw it as well as I thought we would,” said Judge. AU quarterback Chase Thurston connected on 21 of 44 passes and had one aerial picked off.

The Ravens’ running game just barely cleared the century mark. Stott had the best of it, getting 78 yards on 12 carries.

When Anderson punted, it nearly always turned out to be an adventure. Ravens punter Tristan Cork sailed and rolled his first punt 66 yards. A fake punt gained 30 yards and a first down. One punt was partially blocked and one snap sailed high and Cork was forced to run. He didn’t make the first down.

The defensive stats of AU’s sophomore linebacker Ryan Hildebrand was both good news and bad news. His 10 solo tackles and 10 assists gave him 20 for the night, just five short of the school record. That’s the good news. The bad news is that many of those tackles occurred well down field from the line of scrimmage.

“There are some positive things we’ll find when we look at the film,” Judge said. “We had a great crowd. I’m really grateful to everyone who showed up. We had a lot of community support. This isn’t the end of AU football. We’ll bounce back.”

The Ravens will spend the next two weeks on the road, playing next Saturday at DePauw and Sept. 20 at Earlham.

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