2008 Woodie Awards
Intramural flag football team gets third at national tourney
Ryan Hehr
Issue date: 1/24/07 Section: Sports
- Page 1 of 1
In the past year Wright State has had a lot of success with some of their sports teams. The baseball team won the Horizon League Championship and went to the NCAA tournament while the Club Hockey team was able to capture an ACHA National Title.
Now they can add one more thing to their resume: a third place finish in the ACIS National Flag Football Championship.
Comprised of everyday students, the team started out as just any other intramural team. A bunch of friends got together to form a team and joined the WSU intramural program. Everything else is just simply amazing.
The team, which called themselves the Wolfpack, simply destroyed everyone else at Wright State during the regular season, winning by as many as 40 points at times. There was just one team who gave them a run for their money, and that was the campus recreation team at the end of the season.
"We joined the league and swept through the league," said Nathan Sever, a graduate student on the Wolfpack. "The only team that gave us a real run was Campus Rec, who we beat 12-6 in the campus championship."
After clearly being the best Wright State had to offer the Wolfpack then went to the Ohio State Regional to take on teams from all over the country. And much to their surprise, made many of the same results as they did at Wright State.
"We played teams from Nebraska (and) Arkansas and beat them by mercy rule," said Sever. "Then we played UNC-Charlotte, who hadn't lost a game in three years."
And they didn't lose against the Wolfpack either as they handed Wright State a 22-19 loss.
Despite the loss, Wright State was still offered a ticket to the ACIS National Championship in Pensacola, Florida. Because of their dominance over the other teams in the Ohio State Regional the Wolfpack was given an at large bid for the tournament held between Christmas and New Years.
"We just went down to nationals, wanted to have some fun and make a lot of noise down there and ended up getting third place in the whole thing," said Sever.
Making some noise was certainly what the men did in Florida. This was only the second time Wright State had sent a team to nationals with the previous time being last season. But there wasn't much success then as the team played just two games and was sent packing.
But things were quite different this year. The Wolfpack won their first four games of the tournament before being defeated 20-18 by Alabama Birmingham A&M in a heartbreaking game.
After giving up 13 points to start the game Wright State rallied back to go up 18-13 with just two minutes to go. But Alabama was drove down the field and scored once again to defeat the Wolfpack 20-18.
"It was a good game, we just didn't play the first seven minutes of the game," said Sever.
All was not lost though in the defeat. Wright State had three members of their team be named to the All-American ACIS teams. Steve Pflug was on the second team All-American Defense, Justin Lodge was first team All-American Defense, and Dustin Francis was first team All-American Offense.
All-Americans
- Justin Lodge-
First Team All- American Offense
- Dustin Francis-
First Team All-American Defense
- Steve Pflug-
Second Team All- American Defense
Now they can add one more thing to their resume: a third place finish in the ACIS National Flag Football Championship.
Comprised of everyday students, the team started out as just any other intramural team. A bunch of friends got together to form a team and joined the WSU intramural program. Everything else is just simply amazing.
The team, which called themselves the Wolfpack, simply destroyed everyone else at Wright State during the regular season, winning by as many as 40 points at times. There was just one team who gave them a run for their money, and that was the campus recreation team at the end of the season.
"We joined the league and swept through the league," said Nathan Sever, a graduate student on the Wolfpack. "The only team that gave us a real run was Campus Rec, who we beat 12-6 in the campus championship."
After clearly being the best Wright State had to offer the Wolfpack then went to the Ohio State Regional to take on teams from all over the country. And much to their surprise, made many of the same results as they did at Wright State.
"We played teams from Nebraska (and) Arkansas and beat them by mercy rule," said Sever. "Then we played UNC-Charlotte, who hadn't lost a game in three years."
And they didn't lose against the Wolfpack either as they handed Wright State a 22-19 loss.
Despite the loss, Wright State was still offered a ticket to the ACIS National Championship in Pensacola, Florida. Because of their dominance over the other teams in the Ohio State Regional the Wolfpack was given an at large bid for the tournament held between Christmas and New Years.
"We just went down to nationals, wanted to have some fun and make a lot of noise down there and ended up getting third place in the whole thing," said Sever.
Making some noise was certainly what the men did in Florida. This was only the second time Wright State had sent a team to nationals with the previous time being last season. But there wasn't much success then as the team played just two games and was sent packing.
But things were quite different this year. The Wolfpack won their first four games of the tournament before being defeated 20-18 by Alabama Birmingham A&M in a heartbreaking game.
After giving up 13 points to start the game Wright State rallied back to go up 18-13 with just two minutes to go. But Alabama was drove down the field and scored once again to defeat the Wolfpack 20-18.
"It was a good game, we just didn't play the first seven minutes of the game," said Sever.
All was not lost though in the defeat. Wright State had three members of their team be named to the All-American ACIS teams. Steve Pflug was on the second team All-American Defense, Justin Lodge was first team All-American Defense, and Dustin Francis was first team All-American Offense.
All-Americans
- Justin Lodge-
First Team All- American Offense
- Dustin Francis-
First Team All-American Defense
- Steve Pflug-
Second Team All- American Defense
