The NCAA Division II defending national champion Northwest Missouri State University Bearcats will travel to Ashland, OH, to face the Ashland Eagles in the first round of the football playoffs. The game will be played at 11 a.m. (CST) this Saturday, Nov. 18.
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The game will be broadcasted on the Bearcat Radio Network. The winner of Saturday’s game will face the winner of Indianapolis vs. Harding on Nov. 25.
There are 28 teams qualifying for the championship playoffs with seven teams playing in each regional. The top rated teams nationally are Fort Hayes State (KS), Indiana (PA), Central Washington, and West Alabama.
Northwest has now made 14 straight NCAA playoff appearances and 22 all time. The Bearcats are 47-15 all time in the NCAA playoffs, winning national titles in 1998, 1999, 2009, 2013, 2015 and 2016.
Coach Rich Wright is in his first season at the helm of the Bearcat football program after joining the coaching staff in 2004. Northwest built a 38-game winning streak and came within two victories of setting a new consecutive wins record this season but committed six turnovers in a 20-10 loss to arch rival Pittsburg State. Their other loss came against Fort Hayes State the following week which determined the conference championship.
This year the Bearcats placed 17 student athletes on the All-MIAA football team. Senior cornerback Marcus Jones from Gladstone, junior defensive end Austen Eskew from Lawson, and junior linebacker Ben Althoff from Palmyra were all named to the conference’s first team. Jones was a unanimous selection.
Northwest (9-2) is seeded 6th in Super Region Three, finishing second in the MIAA to the undefeated Fort Hayes State Tigers during the regular season. Seeded behind the Tigers are #2 Indianapolis, #3 Ashland, #4 Ferris State, #6 Ouachita Baptist, #6 Northwest, and #7 Harding (AR).
The Ashland Eagles (10-1) are champions of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC). Their only loss was in the season opener, 26-23, against powerhouse Indiana (PA).
The 2017 Ashland senior class became the winningest in program history. This senior class has won 37 games in the last three seasons. This season the Eagles average 35.4 points per game while holding opponents to 14.6 points per game.
Two of Ashland University’s senior starters are GLIAC Player-of-the-Year quarterback Travis Tarnowski and GLIAC Offensive Lineman of the Year center Dominic Giunta. Tarnowski is the program’s all-time leader in touchdown passes with 80, and his 8,277 career passing yards are second in school history. He is 27-5 as a starter for the Eagles. Giunta is a two-year starter who earned All-GLIAC honorable mention laurels in 2016.
Senior kicker Aidan Simenc became the program’s all-time scoring leader. Eagles Head Coach Lee Owens was named GLIAC Coach of the Year. Ten Eagles were named to the All-GLIAC first team this season.
Ashland University, founded in 1878, has an erollment of 6,000 students. Prior to this year, Ashland football finished 9th in the final NCAA Division II national poll in 2012 and finished 15th in the nation in 2008. Ashland notched its first Division II football victory in 1978.
A trivia note: The oldest player ever to appear in an NCAA game was an Ashland Eagle. Ed Barreto ’61 appeared at the age of 60 in the game against St. Francis, (Ill.) in 1997. Ashland shut out St. Francis with a score of 28-0, and Barretto’s No. 32 game-day jersey is displayed in the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, GA (Barreto was a student in the master’s program with football eligibility time left from his earlier college career).