by ERIK RHYNE
Sports Reporter
Senior Day, Southern Conference Championship and record
setting, are all words to describe Saturday for Appalachian State University.
Regardless of what one would like to call ASU’s 37-17
victory over the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga,
it was a good for the Appalachian football team.
With Saturday’s win, the Mountaineers became just the
seventh team in the 87-year history of the SoCon to win three consecutive
titles. Wofford College claimed a share of the title
last week when they defeated the Mocs.
However, the game between ASU and Chattanooga was closer than many would have
liked it to be.
Chattanooga
kept itself in the game for three quarters before making costly mistakes.
 Senior running back Kevin Richardson runs by a Chattanooga defender Saturday. Richardson's 103-yard performance made him ASU's all-time leading rusher. Photo by Derek DeSha
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“We kind of got what we wanted,” Chattanooga head coach Rodney Allison said.
“We ran it like I thought we needed to give ourselves a chance to win.
Obviously, we did in the first half but not in the second. But even with what
they did in the second, it still came down to us making plays.”
The biggest obstacle the Mountaineers faced was Chattanooga’s running
attack, which racked up 262 yards. Helping in this attack were Chattanooga’s Errol Wynn and Bryan Fitzgerald,
both rushing for over 100 yards.
The most damage came in the second quarter when the Mocs
rushed for 166 yards.
“Early on, our defense played pretty well, it was simply we
just missed a lot of tackles,” ASU head coach Jerry Moore said. “We’d just
overrun a lot of things. This is a game where you can’t do that. In the second
half, we tackled better and played with more emotion.”
It was not just the defense having problems. Appalachian
gained a total of 58 yards in the second and third quarters, as they were
outscored 10-0.
Once the second half started, the Mountaineer defense locked
down the Mocs, giving the offense a chance to find its groove.
“There’s a point in time they’re going to take it away,”
Allison said. “You can do that by eventually outnumbering somebody. When they
did that, we couldn’t make the play vertically down the field.”
Mountaineers’ senior cornerback Justin Woazeah said they
knew it was time to step up by watching the offense on the field.
“We had the same scheme from the get-go,” he said “People
just started making plays and tackling. We have playmakers [on offense] and
when they’re not performing, we know it’s time to step up.”
ASU allowed only 55 yards on the ground in the second half.
As they began to do show its muscle, Chattanooga
began to make mistakes that created opportunities for Appalachian.
A fumble and a 17-yard punt in the third quarter were the
beginnings of what would be Chattanooga’s
eventual downfall.
“No disrespect from Chattanooga,
but our confidence came from knowing we had to take advantage of our
opportunities,” Woazeah said. “We don’t dictate our game off of what our
opponent does. They themselves got a little too excited and forgot where they
were at and started making mistakes.”
The Mountaineers racked up 16 unanswered points to put the
game away. The points helped ASU set a school record of 11-straight games of
scoring 30 or more points. It broke the record of 10 games, set last season.
“We’re just out there doing our job, but at the same time,
we’re just having fun,” ASU senior running back Kevin Richardson said. “Our job
is to put points on the board, get first downs and grind the clock down.
Everybody just gets along real well together, [and] it’s just fun being out
there.”
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