At the first ever Battle for the Border, the Clan continued their pattern of horrendous starts. Unfortunately, this time they did not play a redemptive second half.
The Battle for the Border was played against SFU’s closest conference rival, the Central Washington Wildcats (CWU), in a ‘neutral’ location in between the two universities, in Bothell, WA). Despite the fact that they are both in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC), the game did not count toward conference standings.
Just after the third minute of gameplay at Pop Keeney Stadium, the Clan were already down a touchdown. A 56-yard pass caught by Wildcat wide receiver Greg Logan meant CWU only had to go three yards to put up the first points on the scoreboard.
This was only the beginning of SFU’s woes. After only five minutes had passed, CWU scored two more touchdowns. On both of the seven-pointers, the Wildcat defence prevented the Clan from achieving a first down, notably blocking their punt attempts to run them in for touchdowns both times.
After dropping 21 points, SFU was finally able to stop the bleeding — though only for the rest of the first quarter.
In this period of calm, the Clan were able to put up their first — and only — points of the game, off of a 26-yard pass from quarterback Ryan Stanford to wide receiver Bobby Pospischil, who led the team with 48 receiving yards.
However, only 1:38 into the second quarter, CWU scored again taking the score to 28-7, incited by another catch by CWU’s Logan, this time for 41 yards.
For the rest of the second quarter, SFU only allowed one more touchdown, and aside from being unable to produce any results offensively, they played a relatively tight defensive quarter. The bottom would not truly fall out until the second half.
When the bottom did fall, though, it fell hard. Up until CWU’s seventh touchdown, SFU could have still fought for a comeback. However, with 9:43 left in the quarter, that chance evaporated, as CWU took a commanding 42-7 lead.
Before the game was over, CWU had scored three more touchdowns, winning 63-7. Stanford, who was sacked three times and threw two interceptions, was pulled from the massacre, giving second-string quarterback Tyler Nickel a chance to play. Nickel completed eight out of 17 passes — not a bad showing.
Defensive linebacker Quinn Horton attributed the loss to a lack of urgency, saying, “We can’t rely on someone else to make a big play, we’ve got to go out and make a big play ourselves.”
He noted that, despite the lopsided score, the team had pockets of solid play, particularly for the last 12:44 of the fourth quarter during which CWU scored no points and SFU picked up 46 yards.
“At times our defence would shut down their run, and our offence could move the ball. When we wanted stuff, we could do it, but by the time we wanted to do it, it was too late,” added Horton.
With this game, the Clan drop to 0-4 for the season. However, as these games do not count toward GNAC standings, they have essentially been exhibition games.
SFSS Trip to the Border
For the inaugural Battle for the Border, the SFSS took a bus of SFU students to Bothell, WA to watch the game.
At-large representative Jeremy Pearce previously told The Peak that he wanted to expose SFU to an American NCAA game, where university football is ingrained into the culture, saying, “I want students to experience that atmosphere and then eventually I’d love that atmosphere to carry over up here [at SFU].”
Although the number of students in attendance was smaller than the SFSS had anticipated, causing them to cancel an intended second bus that would have left from the Surrey campus, those who did go seemed to enjoy the experience.
Michiko Araki, a business student and former member of the women’s wrestling team, told The Peak, “I was kind of hoping [the Clan] would do better but it was cool that they had people bus down here for the event.”
Pearce hopes that this will be the first of many such events: “Based on everybody’s responses, hopefully this is something we can build on.”
