TLU senior running-back Ian Leslie ran for 130 yards and three touchdowns in the final game of his college football career Saturday at Bulldog Stadium. Photo by Dustin Wyatt.
Bulldogs close out year with 8-2 overall record, 8-1 mark in the ASC
(Seguin) – Texas Lutheran’s 2019 football season officially came to a close Sunday when the team did not receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Division III Football Championship.
TLU (8-2 overall) finished second in the American Southwest Conference with an 8-1 league record. Those eight wins in ASC play are a new TLU record. The second-place finish is TLU’s best showing in the ASC.
TLU’s signature win of 2019 was its 38-27 road victory over then-No. 6 Hardin-Simmons on Oct. 5.
Since Carl Gustafson took over as head coach, TLU has produced 6-4, 7-3 and 8-2 records in successive years. The Bulldogs finished third in the ASC in 2017, third in the ASC in 2018, and now second in the league in 2019.
TLU’s two losses this year came to Hendrix College (Ark.), in TLU’s first game of the year, and to No. 2/No. 1 Mary Hardin-Baylor in TLU’s ninth game of the season.
The Bulldogs needed a lot of help Saturday from other teams around the nation to be considered for one of the five Pool C “at-large” bids.
Among the five teams that D3football.com projected last week as the five teams that would receive the Pool C bids, all five of those teams won their final games.
Plus No. 4-ranked University of Wisconsin at Whitewater lost its first game of the year and lost its conference’s automatic bid. University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh knocked off the Warhawks and claimed the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference’s automatic bid.
UW-Whitewater took one of the five Pool C bids. The other four at-large bids went to: Wesley (Del.), Redlands (Calif.), Wartburg (Iowa), and North Central (Ill.). Each of those five teams has just one loss.
Not one two-loss team received an at-large bid.
Susquehanna (Pa.), at 9-1 and ranked fourth in the last South Region rankings, was left out of the NCAA post-season.
TLU was eighth in the final South Region rankings, released last week before the final games of the regular season.
The Bulldogs advanced to the 2014 NCAA Division III playoffs as a Pool B selection. TLU played in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference that season and had a 9-1 regular-season record. The SCAC did not have an automatic bid to the NCAA post-season in 2014.
TLU defeated McMurry 57-14 on Saturday at Bulldog Stadium. The game was the final collegiate contest for 14 Bulldog seniors.
“The leadership that our seniors have provided, not just this year, our team has seen that we have made positive steps these past few years mainly because of those seniors,” said Carl Gustafson, TLU’s third-year head coach. “Their leadership, their resolve, their work ethic, they take care of the young guys – I think our team wanted to play well today to pay tribute to the seniors, and I think we did.”
The Bulldogs did their best Saturday against McMurry to make a case for a playoff bid. TLU dominated both lines of scrimmage by rushing for 387 yards and seven TDs and collecting nine tackles for loss (including five sacks).
TLU’s seven rushing touchdowns was one shy of the school record of eight, set in 1998 against Southwestern Assemblies of God University.
Senior running back Ian Leslie celebrated Senior Day with 130 rushing yards and a career-best three touchdowns on 16 carries. Leslie scored on a pair of 1-yard runs and had a 13-yard touchdown scamper in the third quarter.
Leslie and most of his 13 senior teammates were a part of TLU’s 2-8 season in 2016.
Since that year, starting with the Carl Gustafson hiring in November of 2016, the Bulldogs have gone 21-9 with records of 6-4, 7-3, and 8-2. The Bulldogs finished third in the ASC in 2017 and 2018 and now have a runner-up conference finish.
“I think us going through that 2-8 trial made that bond what we have today,” Leslie said. “Again, we are flipping it from 2-8 to 8-2. We had to grow together. We came in together. I’m sure after that first year everybody was like, “What’s going on?” But once we got that new culture in, we took it upon ourselves to do that extra work in the summer. Again, going from 2-8 to 8-2, you pretty much don’t hear about that in three or four years. I think this class is pretty special.”
Leslie’s fellow senior running back Austin Mathews also went over the 100-yard mark Saturday. Mathews rushed for 116 yards on 17 carries and scored on a pair of six-yard TD runs. Mathews finished his Bulldog career with 26 rushing TDs in 33 games played. He rushed for 1,999 yards on 355 carries, averaging 5.6 yards per carry.
Sophomore quarterback Wade Freeman rushed for a career-high 127 yards on only 11 carries. He averaged 11.5 yards per carry, and he scored on a three-yard rush on the Bulldogs’ opening drive.
The Bulldogs led 37-7 at the half. TLU scored just before the half on a 29-yard scoring strike from Freeman to senior Charles Robinson Jr. Robinson caught five passes for 75 yards.
Sam Guzman led TLU in total tackles, with 11. He had a half-sack and a tackle for loss. Brandon Bennett added nine total tackles, including one sack and 1.5 tackles for loss.
The fourteen Bulldog seniors playing in their last home game were: Mathews, Leslie, Robinson, defensive end Manny Longoria, linebacker Derek Dunn, cornerback Kedrick Ward, offensive lineman Coy Tutt, offensive lineman Cameron Maha, offensive lineman Travis York, offensive lineman Garrett Garza, offensive lineman Andrew Lotz, linebacker Adairius Norwood, receiver CJ Romero, and offensive lineman Benjamin Rodriguez.
TLU men’s soccer ends year with 2-0 loss to CMS in NCAA DIII Championship
(San Antonio) – Thirteenth-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (Calif.) converted two penalty kicks in the first half and made those goals stand up in a 2-0 victory Saturday over Texas Lutheran in the NCAA Division III Men’s Soccer Championship’s opening round.
William Birchard knocked home the two penalty kicks, and CMS advanced in the NCAA post-season to face Trinity on Sunday afternoon. The Tigers, like TLU a member of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, defeated University of Texas at Dallas 3-1.
Birchard received the two penalty-kick opportunities after a TLU hand-ball in the box and a Bulldog foul in the box. He converted the first penalty kick in the eighth minute and made it 2-0 in the 23rd minute.
CMS improved to 14-4-2 overall.
TLU, with its school-record 15 victories, ended its historic 2019 campaign at 15-6 overall.
The Bulldogs played in the NCAA tournament for just the second time in school history. The Bulldogs won the 2019 SCAC Championship with back-to-back wins last weekend over Trinity (Texas) and Colorado College.
The Stags out-shot TLU 18-6 and had a 9-1 edge in shots on goal. Birchard had four total shots on goal, including the two penalty kicks.
TLU forward Luis Green, the SCAC Offensive Player of the Year, led TLU with two total shots. Braulio Adam had the lone TLU shot-on-goal.
Bulldog freshman keeper Caleb Weed made six saves. CMS keeper Eduardo De Anda needed to make just one save.
Fouls were even at nine. CMS had 14 corner kicks to TLU’s three.
The match was the final collegiate contest for TLU seniors Lalo Lopez-Rivera, Cameron Townes, Chase Silk, Guillermo Guerra, Cole Welker, Jacob Trujillo, and Jose Torres-Luna Jr.