Round One Down

The Wildcats used all but 33 seconds of the full 60 minutes of gametime to once again knock Cal Lutheran out of the playoffs, 30-27 at Maxwell Field this past Saturday.

It was the third straight year that the two teams have met in the first round with Linfield coming out ahead all three times.

This one was a nail-biter as the Kingsmen from California fought back from a 20-3 deficit to come within a Field Goal from tying the game as time was running out.

A blocked field goal secured the win in the last minute of play and led to a happy Wildcat greeting after the game.

The team will travel across the country to face Wesley College in Dover, Delaware on Saturday.

Stacking the deck

The official brackets for the Division III playoffs were released on Sunday afternoon.

http://www.d3football.com/playoffs/2011/bracket.pdf

d3football.com's #5 ranked Linfield will be matched against #8 Cal Lutheran in the First Round for the third consecutive year. This will be the 5th time that they are playing each other in the past 3 seasons.

CalLu fans must be frustrated at not being tabbed for a home game in the opening round especially since SCIAC (Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference) runner-up, #14 Redlands, was also included in the tournament and sent on the road to face the top seed in the bracket, #4 Mary Hardin-Baylor in Texas.

This was one of many perplexing things that seem to occur with yearly regularity in the NCAA Selection Committee's decisions. There seems to be a heavy bias against the West-coast teams in terms of seeding and travel:

• Four of the eight teams in the bracket with Linfield finished in the d3football.com Top Ten
• Seven of the eight finished in the Top 20
• #3 St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN) is a #1 seed in a bracket that has NO other teams ranked higher than #11 Delaware Valley
• #1 Wisconsin-Whitewater, also a #1 seed has only #10 Salisbury in its bracket and 3 other teams in the Top 20.
• The final top seed, #2 Mount Union has two Top Ten teams in its bracket but also includes teams ranked #22, #25, #38, #39 and one unranked automatic qualifier.

Another oddity comes in the second round where the winner of the Linfield-CalLu game, barring an upset by #31 Hobart, would likely face #7 Wesley in Delaware! d3football.com feels that Wesley may have been the best team to not make the DivIII finals in the past 2-3 seasons.

Finally, besides the tough draw in the bracket looking forward should Linfield be fortunate enough to keep winning the travel schedule would likely criss-cross the nation and add to the difficulty. If form holds according to rankings the Wildcats would play at home the first week; Wesley in Dover, DE; Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, TX; Mount Union in Alliance, OH then finally to Salem, VA for the Stagg Bowl.

That's a lot of frequent flyer miles!

GO 'CATS!

Championship Saturday in Mac

We are back in McMinnville today for what we thought when we originally planned it, would be Brent's Senior Game and final regular season home game. Instead, because of a resurgent Lewis & Clark team the importance of the game has skyrocketed.

The Pioneers lost their first game of the year last week to Willamette and although it was also a Northwest Conference loss can still walk away with the automatic bid into the NCAA playoffs if they can get past Linfield today.

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The 'Cats won, 47-14 and claimed the outright Northwest Conference title. Along with that comes the automatic bid into the playoffs.

The wait for the official seeding will last until Sunday afternoon. Then they find out who and where they will play in the first round. It's almost certain that they will be home for their first game but the opponent is open to pretty wild speculation.