NCAA: Clan chop down the first place Lumberjacks (VIDEO)

The Simon Fraser University football team erased a 24 point deficit and overcame heavy fog to defeat the first place Humboldt State University Lumberjacks, 41-37 Saturday afternoon during their last home game of the season.BOX SCORE

Prior to the game, the Clan said goodbye to their graduating seniors, before getting down to the business of taking on Humboldt.

“We’ve been practicing in this all week,” said graduating runningback Bo Palmer (North Vancouver, BC).Ā Ā “I’m a little lost for words right now.Ā Ā We knew we had to win this game, we knew we were gonna win this game and to see it all come together like that is great.Ā Ā It makes it even better that we were able to win my last home game at SFU.Ā Ā This one is definitely the highlight of my Clan career.”

Clan quarterback Trey Wheeler (Seattle, WA) completed 19 passes for three touchdowns and 245 yards.

Lemar Durant (Coquitlam, BC) caught seven passes, banking 131 yards and scoring two touchdowns.

SFU’s defence was led by Casey Chin (Port Moody, BC) who had eight and a half tackles in the game, while Alex Iezzi (London, ON) recovered two fumbles which eventually resulted in touchdowns.

The Jacks looked as though they were going to cruise to victory in the first quarter with two touchdowns and a field goal to end the first with a 17-0 lead.

Scoring chances came few and far between for the better part of the second quarter as the two sides traded touchdowns to end the half with the Clan trailing by 17.

The Clan caught fire in the second half, scoring the next 27 points to take the lead over the Lumberjacks.

On Humboldtā€™s opening drive, Dylan Roper (North Vancouver, BC) recoved a Lumberjack fumble that wound up in the end zone, as a six play, 29 yard drive by the Clan ended with a Wheeler touchdown run.

SFU would regain possession shortly after HSU’s Nick Ricciardulli fumbled, a fumble which was recovered by Roper.

Another Humboldt fumble, this time recovered by Iezzi resulted in another Clan touchdown, giving SFU their first lead of the game at 27-24, as the Clan missed the extra point.

Durant then caught his second touchdown of the game, hauling in a 42-yard pass for the score.

Humboldt scored the next 13 points to take the lead back at 37-34, meaning the Clan needed a late touchdown to re-take the lead, or a field goal to tie.

With just over five minutes left in the game, Wheeler orchestrated a four play, 32 yard drive to score what would hold up as the game winning touchdown.

After a spectacular effort by Bobby Pospischil (Coquitlam, BC) to get the first down, where the receiver attempted to leap over the HSU defender, Wheeler found Durant who had to break several tackles to complete the 45 yard touchdown play.

With just over a minute to play, and Humboldt threatening on the Clan four yard line, the SFU defence came up big, stopping the Lumberjacks and sealing the 41-37 win for the Clan.

“I think, for us seniors, over the last four years we’ve faced a lot of adversity and Coach Johnson always told us to celebrate the adversity, even in the darkest times and that’s what we did today,” said senior receiver Mathis Baumbach (Dusseldorf, Germany).Ā Ā “Today at halftime, he told us to keep fighting and that’s exactly what we did.Ā Ā I think Coach Johnson makes sure people don’t give up, and that’s what happened today.”

With the win, the Clan improve to 4-5 in Great Northwest Athletic Conference play, with a chance to finish the season at 0.500, when they visit the Azusa Pacific Cougars in Azusa, CA next Saturday at 6:00 p.m. to close out the 2012 season.

Photo credit: Ron Hole

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