Cal falls to Assumption in first round
WORCESTER, Mass. – The California University football team made its first visit to Massachusetts Saturday, and the 550-mile, nine-hour trek was one the Vulcans would rather forget.
An opportunistic Assumption football team intercepted Cal senior quarterback Michael Keir five times and scored 20 fourth-quarter points en route to a 40-31 victory in the first round of the NCAA Division II playoffs at the Multi-Sport Stadium.
The Vulcans, who rode a five-game winning streak into the postseason, finished their excellent season with a 9-3 record.
“I’m super proud of our team,” coach Gary Dunn said. “We came up short today, but these kids have been playing playoff football for six or seven weeks now. We lost two games earlier this year and these kids knew what they had to do and they did it. I can’t say enough about our players.”
Assumption (10-1) will host Findlay in an NCAA second-round game next week.
California, which was making its seventh national postseason appearance, led by as many as 14 in the first half, but the Greyhounds, with the help of four second-half interceptions and a pair of fourth-quarter touchdown runs by sophomore Doug Santos, roared ahead by nine with 7:28 to play.
Keir led a 67-yard drive that culminated with a 2-yard TD run by junior Jimmy Wheeler that brought the Vulcans within 33-31 with 3:32 left.
Assumption punted with 1:30 left and pinned the Vulcans at their own 1-yard line.
Two Assumption penalties gave Cal some breathing room, but sophomore cornerback Shawn Springs, Jr., came up with his second interception of the game and returned it 39 yards for a touchdown with just over a minute to play.
“At the end of the day, you can’t turn the ball over,” said Keir, who had thrown only six interceptions in the regular season.
Assumption led the Northeast-10 Conference in interceptions with 16.
The Greyhounds, who captured the NE-10 title for the second time in three years, won its first nine games of the season by an average of 38.4 points before falling to Bentley, 35-31, in last week’s regular-season finale.
Assumption senior kicker Cole Tracy put his team on the board first with a 48-yard field goal. Senior Will Brazill tied it for Cal with a 24-yarder, and the Vulcans took their first lead on junior Jalen Bell’s 1-yard touchdown run early in the second quarter.
Cal, which possessed the ball for more than 19 minutes of the first half, jumped to a 17-3 lead on Keir’s 18-yard touchdown pass to junior Craig Thompson with 7:38 left before halftime.
In the closing seconds of the first half, Assumption senior safety Andrew Benson intercepted Keir and returned the ball 71 yards to set up a 20-yard touchdown pass from Brendan Tobey to Ashton Grant. The play shifted momentum in Assumption’s favor.
The Greyhounds picked off Keir twice more in the first 1:30 of the third quarter and converted the takeaways into 10 points.
“Getting a score right before half was huge,” Benson said. “We came back out and picked up the momentum right where we left off. We corrected the things we needed to at halftime and came back out and executed.”
Assumption went up, 20-17, on senior quarterback Brendan Tobey’s 1-yard TD run early in the third quarter.
The Vulcans regained the lead, 24-20, on Keir’s 5-yard TD run on the first play of the fourth quarter. Keir’s 16-yard completion to senior wide receiver Luke Smorey, who did a great job getting a toe down inbounds near the sideline, was the key play in the drive.
Assumption took the lead for good on Santos’ 6-yard TD run with 9:32 left.