(THE PICKET) – The Shepherd Rams perfect season came to a 34-7 devastating end at the hands of the Northwest Missouri State Bearcats in the National championship Saturday at Sportsman Park in Kansas City.
The opening play would tell the story of the remainder of the game for the Shepherd Rams. A snap over the head of quarterback Jeff Ziemba recovered by the Bearcats at the 5-yard line gave them position for a quick score and put Shepherd in a quick 7-0 deficit.
The Rams kept the deficit at 7 for the remainder of the first quarter due to the stellar play of the defense, but with the offense struggling to stay on the field it didn’t take long for the Bearcats to start capitalizing on crucial play and begin to pull away early.
After giving up a touchdown and a field goal in the second quarter the Rams looked to go into halftime only a few scores behind, but an interception thrown by Ziemba was returned for a touchdown extended the lead, and visibly crushing the spirits of the Rams and whatever momentum they had left after keeping the game in striking distance.
“I literally didn’t have much time (to pass). They rushed four big guys and they were great at what they did. They were really good along the defensive line,” Ziemba said in the post-game press conference.
Rams head coach Monte Cater, in a post-game press conference, acknowledged that was a turning point in the game.
“We could never really get into any kind of a rhythm and they had a lot to do with that. We couldn’t get our defense off the field and again a lot of credit for that goes to them,” he said about Norwest Missouri.
The Rams came into the second half down by 24 and struggling on offense to get anything going. But following a muffed punt recovered by the Rams that was turned into a quick touchdown, it appeared the Rams might have found the spark they needed.
The excitement was short lived as Northwestern Missouri State went on to score 10 straight points to completely shut down the Rams offense on their way to a 34-7 victory and a fifth National Championship in program history.
“I’m really proud of our guys and they kept battling,” Cater said. We got down so quick and so much and they could have just let the thing go but they didn’t. I’m proud of the year they had and the way they came together. They kept playing hard today, we just lost to a better football team.” Cater added it was the best defense the Rams had faced all season.
The offense struggled to gain any rhythm gaining only 97 yards of total offense, due in large to the pressure on Ziemba, which included 10 sacks. The lack of offense included a record setting -39 yards rushing on the day.
The Rams defense, which had carried the team throughout the majority of the playoff, was dominated for the majority of the game, giving up a playoff high 462 yards and 34 points.
Ziemba thanked Shepherd’s fans for making the trip after the game.
“It’s a great feeling, even though we came out here and lost. For what this has down for Shepherdstown, seeing all of our fans and there’s a lot of them. It didn’t seem like there was a lot of them here but it means a lot to seem them come all this way to support us. We can’t thank them enough,” Ziemba said.
The Picket reporter Brooke Binns contributed to this story from Kansas City.
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