#4 Capital 41, North Central (Ill.) 13
(COLUMBUS, Ohio)--Senior quarterback Rocky Pentello (Columbus/Westerville South) passed for 399 yards and a career-best five touchdown passes to lead the Capital University football team to a 41-13 win over North Central (Ill.) College in NCAA Division III Football Playoffs Second Round game in Columbus, Ohio.
Pentello became just the fourth signal calller in NCAA Division III history to pass for over 12,000 career yards as he now stands at 12,314 yards and leads Capital, ranked No. 4 in the nation, to a school-record 11 wins (11-1) and back into the national quarterfinals for a second-straight season. The Crusaders will meet the same opponent they met in last year's North Region final as they play at #1 in the nation Mount Union College at 12 p.m. next Saturday in Alliance, Ohio.
"It was fun to watch our team play today," said Jim Collins, Capital's head coach. "They did a great job executing on offense and defense. We had a lot of sensational plays. As a coach, you want to see guys making plays, and for 60 minutes it was everybody who kept making plays."
North Central ends the season at 9-3 and with a loss to Capital for a second-straight season.
"I give credit to Capital," said John Thorne, North Central's head coach. "Their kids played extremely hard. They blocked and tackled and executed very well. I thought that at halftime if just a couple of things had gone the other way, it would have been a very close game. We had to play catch up a little too much in the second half. [Capital's] a very good football team and did a wonderful job today."
Senior tight end Dylan Kelly (Hilliard/Hilliard Darby) had nine catches for a career-best 184 yards, including a 80-yard catch and run for a touchdown that marked the longest pass play of the season and second longest in school history.
Junior wide receiver Derick Alexander (Grove City/Grove City) had 145 yards receiving on nine catches, while senior runningback Charlie Smith (Westerville/Big Walnut) ran for 100 yards for a third-straight game as he had a game-high 18 rushes for 110 yards and a score.
North Central started the scoring on a 37-yard field goal from Anthony Bognanno with 2:11 left in the first quarter to lead 3-0 after one quarter.
Pentello and Kelly then hooked up for a pair of touchdowns in the first four minutes of the second quarter. The first one was a 14-yarder, followed by the 80-yarder that put the Crusaders up 14-3. Bognanno booted another field goal, this one from 29 yards out, to close the gap to 14-6 with 5:44 left in the half. Capital answered just a minute later when Pentello hit Alexander on a 37-yard touchdown pass to extend the lead to 20-3. The Cardinals tried to respond before halftime and drove all the way to the Capital 12 yard line before linebacker Eric Andriacco (Cincinnati/Elder) intercepted a Kam Kniss pass to end the half with Capital up 20-6.
Capital then committed three third quarter turnovers in a pair of Pentello interceptions and an Alexander fumble, but North Central managed only 26 yards of offense in the quarter. Capital tacked on another touchdown as Pentello hit Mike Niedzwiecki (Norwalk/Norwalk-St. Paul) on a 14-yard touchdown pass with 7:12 left in the frame and the score was 27-6 at the end of the quarter.
North Central got into the end zone for the first time early in the fourth quarter when Kniss hit Hank Johnston on a three-yard score with 11:57 left in the game to bring the score to 27-13. Pentello tossed his fifth and final touchdown pass of the game, a 28-yard strike, which sent the score to 34-13. Smith put on a final score with four-yard touchdown with 2:41 left in the game for the 41-13 final.
Kam Kniss finished with 264 yards passing (31-of-46) and ended his career as 12th on the NCAA Division III career passing list with 10,221 yards, while Israel Brown had 11 rushes for 59 yards and Perry Welch had seven catches for 82 yards to lead North Central.
Capital outgained North Central, 514-371, while Andriacco had a pair of interceptions and senior Thom Hausler (Hilliard/Hilliard Davidson) had a game-high 14 tackles to lead the Crusader defense. Tim Bellazzini led the Cardinals with 12 tackles and a sack.