LOS ANGELES — The Cal Lutheran football team is now in control in its pursuit of the first NCAA Division III playoff berth in the program’s history.
With a stunning 43-25 win at previously unbeaten Occidental, CLU (4-3, 4-0) is now alone atop the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference standings. With a win next week at Pomona-Pizter, the Kingsmen could clinch the conference’s automatic playoff berth.
“Big games come down to turnovers and taking care of the ball,� said CLU coach Ben McEnroe, still dripping from a Gatorade shower from his players. “We just happened to win that battle. It was awesome.�
Quarterback R.J. Benedict and running back Louis Montano — and a big-play performance by the CLU defense — helped the Kingsmen end a four-game losing streak against the Tigers (6-1, 4-1) and halt Occidental’s 32-game regular-season win streak.
Benedict completed 20 of 33 passes for 315 yards and three touchdowns, while Montano rushed for 161 yards with touchdowns of 61 and 34 yards. CLU’s defense forced six Occidental turnovers, including a Josh Richards interception returned for a touchdown, and sacked Occidental quarterbacks Justin Goltz and Danny Southwick 10 times. (All stats are unofficial.)
CLU led 23-3 at the half, but Occidental scored on its first two possessions of the third quarter to cut the lead to 23-17. But as it was about to get a third possession, Occidental fumbled a punt that was recovered by CLU at the Occidental 15. Four plays later, Benedict threw a 5-yard TD pass to Chris Hammond, and CLU added two touchdowns in a seven-second span of the fourth quarter to salt the game away. After Benedict and Jesse Matlock hooked up on a 68-yard TD pass with 12:59 remaining, Richards intercepted Goltz on the first play of the subsequent possession for his 16-yard touchdown.

Update: I'd promised final stats, but I can't quite give accurate final numbers because of a couple of apparent typos in the lines for CLU running back Louis Montano and Occidental quarterback Justin Goltz. The final box shows Montano with a net of 92 rushing yards — 162 gained and 70 lost, and Goltz with a net of minus-95 yards, including 130 in losses. In the play-by-play, I've found Montano credited with a 65-yard loss on what was actually a 5-yard gain, and Goltz charged with a 67-yard loss instead of a 3-yard loss. I've alerted Occidental to the errors, but an official correction could take some time.

Anyway, going with the corrected figures,
CLU ran 64 plays for 465 yards, 314 through the air. Occidental ran 108 plays had 491 yards, 381 passing.

CLU's individual leaders on offense were Benedict, 20 of 33 for 314 yards with three TDs and one interception; Montano, with 22 carries for 155 yards, and receiver Jesse Matlock, eight catches for 168 yards and two TDs, including a remarkable one-handed catch for a TD at the end of the first half. Defensively, Austin Jones had 11 tackles, Garrett Redd had 7.5 and Josh Richards had a very busy night: six tackles, including four sacks for 25 yards, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery and an interception for his second TD this season.

Occidental's individual leaders were QB Goltz, 33 for 58 for 302 yards, with two TDs and two interceptions; RB Jason Haller (22-147) and receiver Rocky Caisulli, with a whopping 15 catches for 104 yards.

The general theme of CLU's post-game comments had to do with the total team effort involved. As McEnroe noted in marvelling over that one-handed TD catch by Matlock at the end of the first half, "There were plays like that all over the field."

The full box, and a more complete followup, will be available in Monday's Star.

ORANGE — Chapman quarterback Eric Marty threw for touchdowns on consecutive third-quarter possessions to break a tie at 23, and Chapman went on to a 44-30 victory Saturday night, ending CLU’s three-game win streak and halting an eight-game Chapman losing streak against the Kingsmen.
CLU is 3-3. Chapman improves to 4-2.
In his first game at quarterback since starter Jericho Toilolo was lost to injury, CLU’s R.J. Benedict was 22 of 44 for 219 yards with two interceptions. He had a 21-yard TD pass to Brandyn Bennett and two scoring runs.
But CLU had difficulty sustaining offensive drives — three of its scoring drives began at or inside the Chapman 25 — and that was reflected in the final statistics: the Kingsmen were outgained 596 yards to 259, and unofficially had the ball for just 16 minutes, 33 seconds.
Chapman’s quarterbacking tandem of Marty and Luke Robinson combined for 449 yards, mostly from Marty 18 of 24 for 334 yards and four touchdowns, including the go-ahead throws of 32 yards to Nick Pearson (St. Bonaventure High) and 18 yards to Lance Carter.
Pearson was not the only Ventura County product with an impact for Chapman: receiver Brandon Koller (Oak Park) had nine receptions for 100 yards and a TD.
Three CLU receivers finished with five possessions: Danny Hernandez (68 yards), Chris Hammond (56 yards) and Bennett (49 yards).
CLU, already without Toilolo — who suffered a fractured rib and collapsed lung a week earlier against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps — lost returning all-conference running back Jose Rojas to a knee injury in the first quarter. He is scheduled for an MRI on Monday to determine the extent of the injury.
Check Monday's Star for more on the game.

Update: Corrected final stats (more in keeping with my unofficial ones) credit Benedict with 210 yards on 22 of 45 passing, making Chapman's final advantage in yards 596-274. Officially, CLU finished with a time of posssesion of 18:27.

The no-huddle offense — which has helped Cal Lutheran average 45.3 points and 524 yards in a three-game win streak — showed its versatility on the first two possessions of Saturday’s 47-12 win over Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.
CLU’s first possession lasted all of one play — a 62-yard touchdown pass from Jericho Toilolo to Chris Hammond. On the next, CLU went 99 yards in 11 plays — which still took just three minutes, 54 seconds.
“The thing about the no-huddle offense,� said coach Ben McEnroe, “is you try to dictate the tempo of the game. So when we want to really go fast, we’re shooting plays in fast and trying to gas the defense. And you see that. We saw it with our scout team this week (in practice). We’re getting 80, 85 plays per practice.
“And then when we to grind it out, we huddle up. On the 1-yard line, our first goal is to get a first down. I think we got that on the second play. Then our goal is to get another first down. And then we open it up.�
Of course, anything that can wear out the guys on the other side of the ball can take its toll on the offense, too, but lineman Jeff Briscoe is willing to make the effort.
“We’ve just got to be in good shape,� said Briscoe. “If you’re not, it’s tough to do. But we definitely have an edge with our offensive line. We pride ourselves on working hard. And it’s pretty fun to run.�
Weird play: Claremont’s first touchdown was set up by an odd and extremely rare play, one that turned a gaffe into a big gain.
On a punt attempt, the snap went over the head of punter Brian Downs, who tracked it down and got off a kick from well behind the line of scrimmage at the Claremont 45. His scrambling kick landed at the 35, where it was fielded by Claremont’ Patrick Atwater, who hesitated for a moment — thinking the ball was downed at that spot — and then, at the urging of the Claremont sideline, started running. By the time CLU reacted and caught him, Atwater had reached the CLU 3; Claremont scored two plays later.
Because the kick did not cross the line of scrimmage, it was a live ball and, as one of the officials on the field explained, “any one of the 22 players could do anything with it.� Had it crossed the line of scrimmage, only CLU could have advanced it.
Atwater, a linebacker, was therefore credited with a 62-yard rushing play.
There were protests from the CLU side of the field, but McEnroe immediately calmed down his staff.
“I said, ‘You’ll never see it again, but this is what happened,’ “ he recalled later. “But we’ll talk about it with the team tomorrow.�
It was, incidentally, the second consecutive snap that had sailed over the head of Downs. The first one didn’t work out quite so well. He was tracked down for a 34-yard loss giving CLU possession at the Claremont 9; four plays later, Connor Pearce kicked the first of his four field goals to give CLU a 17-0 lead.
Flaws: Dominant as CLU was, it had its miscues — notably 95 yards in penalties, and two cases where it began possessions inside the Claremont 20, but settled for field goals.
After the game, it was suggested to McEnroe that this was an ideal game for a coach — a big win, but with plenty of reasons to yell at players about mistakes.
“That’s the whole point of coaching,� he said, laughing. “You find what you’re doing wrong and get it fixed.�
Seriously, he added, “It just shows the potential of this football team. We’ve got a lot to clean up, and our schedule the last month of the season, we’re back-loaded. So we’ve got to play better.�
CLU’s next three games are on the road, at Chapman, Occidental and Pomona-Pitzer. The Kingsmen aren’t home again until the regular-season finale with Redlands on Nov. 10.

ANAHEIM — So what are they going to do? And when are they going to do it?
The season may be under way for the rest of the Ducks, but Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne are still in limbo, not in action.
Niedermayer, the captain and playoff MVP of last year’s Stanley Cup champions, and Selanne — who led the team in scoring in the regular season, and tied for second during its playoff run — were back in the Honda Center Wednesday night as the Ducks raised their Stanley Cup championship banner prior to their home opener with Boston.
But both were in street clothes, since they continue to consider retirement. And consider. And consider.
A sellout crowd did its best to nudge them back to action, chanting “One More Year� when they were introduced and at a couple of other points during the banner ceremony.
“I knew the crowd would do that,� said coach Randy Carlyle. “That’s good. Put a little pressure on them.�
Did he join in? “No,� he said, and laughed. (Which in itself qualifies as a stop-the-headline moment.)
Niedermayer called the chant “pretty convincing� — which is not to say he immediately announced plans to return. Or that he’s likely to do so any time soon. If he’s close to any kind of decision, he’s still not tipping his hand what it might be.
He did say, though, that he was probably closer to that decision this summer — when he told general manager Brian Burke he was leaning toward retirement, prompting the signing of Mathieu Schneider — than he is now. He has a deadline date in mind (“I probably won’t share that,� he said), but has no particular expectation that he’s going to wake up one morning and suddenly know for sure what to do.
“I don’t think it will ever be like that,� he said. “Some people say it might, that one day an answer’s going to come to you, that that’s the right answer. But I think the situation that I’m in, at this point in my career with everything that’s gone on, I don’t know if I can see that happening.�
Ultimately, his decision may hinge on — or at least be influenced by — how well the Ducks do without him.
“There’s no doubt I feel a responsibility to the guys in the room,� he said. When the team struggles, he said, “I feel I should be out there, helping any way I can. That’s been my mentality as long as I’ve been playing hockey. It’s sort of hard to turn that off.�
Selanne sounded less conflicted, but no less non-committal.
“I think it has been so easy,� he said of his new status as a non-player, “because I haven’t been around this place with the fans and this game that much. But of course, when Scotty and I were on the ice, I was getting goose bumps … It was very exciting.
“I know I’m going to get to be around more, and get the feeling if I want to do it again. … Let’s see what happens.�
As much as Selanne had enjoyed the last two years in Anaheim, he also knows how much work went into playing as well as he did, and he still needs to convince himself he’s willing to make the commitment to continue to work that hard.
“In this game, this game, at this level,� he said, “you have to be so motivated and so hungry about going out there and doing your best. I’m going to be honest with myself. If I don’t have that feeling, there’s no reason to come back.�
Predictable, but not fatal: Given that half-hour ceremony, it was no big surprise when the Ducks needed just 65 seconds to get into a 1-0 hole against the Bruins.
“It’s always difficult when you have a half-hour ceremony that’s not part of your normal preparation,� said Carlyle. “And we knew that. … But it’s a lot tougher to live than to just alleviate through conversation. I thought we showed a tremendous amount of resiliency when the first shot went in.�
Said Ryan Getzlaf, who scored one goal and assisted on the other in the Ducks’ 2-1 win, “They came out skating a little bit and we weren’t really prepared. … I think we played pretty well the rest of the night. We made good decisions with the puck, and got everybody skating the way we needed to.�
Defenseman Francois Beauchemin, who scored the game-winner, said, “The first five minutes were kind of tough, but after that we got our game going and we did the little things to win.�
One fancy dog dish: Every member of a Stanley Cup championship team gets a day with the Stanley Cup to spend as he wishes, and the Ducks’ media relations department compiled a list of what players did during those days.
That list noted that Jean-Sebastien Giguere’s dog, Henri, “was allowed to have his dinner out of the Cup, after which the Cup was thoroughly scrubbed so that people could drink out of it.�
Giguere was asked about this Wednesday, as it was suggested that Henri must be a fairly big dog. After all, the Cup is 35 ¼ inches tall.
“Well, he’s a Lab,� said Giguere, “but yeah, I made it possible for him to eat out of there.
“It was great,� he said, laughing. “… He’s just an eater. He wants to eat, and he couldn’t believe it. He was drooling. I didn’t tell anybody else that.�
Giguere said he’d always known he’d want to feed Henri from the Cup if he had the opportunity.
“There was no question about it. I think if you have kids, you’ve got to eat your cereal with your kids and all that. My kid’s a little too young� — his son, Maxime, is six months old — “so I’ll feed my dog.�