Westminster Christian upsets Hiawatha

Westminster Christian knew that its offense was better than what the Warriors showed last week and that its defense would eventually come around. That it came around against an undefeated Hiawatha team on the road made it that much better, as the Warriors got back to .500 on the year and in the Northeastern Athletic Conference with a hard-fought 24-14 victory Friday night.

Without their starting quarterback, Max Tucker, or leading wideout Nick Demaria, the Warriors (2-2) turned to the run game and held onto the ball for nearly 29 minutes of game time to hand the Hawks (3-1 their first loss of the season in the process.

Westminster ran the ball a total of 51 times out of 56 offensive plays for 273 yards, with over half of those yards coming from Xavier Brown. Brown finished with 176 yards and 2 touchdowns, helping lift some of the pressure off backup QB Scotty Graziano, who also had a rushing TD.

Warriors' head coach John Davis praised his offensive line for the effectiveness of the run, especially Zach Aters, whom Davis called a "man child" for the for the holes he opened for Brown and for keeping the pass rush off Graziano when he did drop back.

"We can run the ball, as well as pass, and we showed it tonight," Davis said.

Though he was 3-for-5 passing for 18 yards, Graziano also earned praise from his head coach for the way he stepped up to the challenge.

"Scotty did a great job," Davis said of his sophomore QB. "He was patient and very smart with the ball tonight. He's the type of kid that you can teach very easily because he's receptive to it."

Helping the Warriors' cause on offense was a very good defense effort that limited the Hawks to under 200 yards of total offense and timely turnovers. Linebacker John Davis picked-off Hiawatha's Evan Williams in the fourth quarter as the Hawks tried to mount a comeback that would fall short, a sight coach Davis loved to see.

"We know our offense will be there so we try and improve our defense every week, and tonight I think we did a phenomenal job in that regard," he said. "All our guys just dug deep tonight and said let's go to war."

Both teams would trade touchdowns in the second and third quarters before Westminster finally took the lead for good in the fourth on a Brown touchdown run and iced the game with an Adam Greene field goal.