CLU Stifles La Verne, Puts Halt to Losing Skid

LA VERNE —  It was hot, smoggy, windy and, all things considered, probably the most beautiful day the Cal Lutheran football players have seen in more than a year.

Voyager II didn’t venture to places much harsher than the University of La Verne’s parched and wind-swept Arnett Field, but it was Cal Lutheran that played out of this world in snapping a school-record 10-game losing streak with a convincing 44-9 nonconference victory.

“The best thing about it was that we did it with a running attack,” said Cal Lutheran halfback Dean Henderson, who scored three first-half touchdowns and ran for 120 of Cal Lutheran’s 282 rushing yards. “I was kind of scared coming into this game.”

La Verne threatened to turn the game into a shoot-out.

On its first offensive play, the Leopards (0-2) scored on an 89-yard pass from Mark Brown to Anthony Grove. But Cal Lutheran (1-2) dominated thereafter, limiting La Verne to 174 total yards and seven first downs.

“We’re a better football team than La Verne,” said Cal Lutheran Coach Bob Shoup, who was inserting third-string players into the game before the first half ended. “This was a really good thing for us to have the opportunity to play people.”

Shoup played all four of his quarterbacks, shuttling a different player in on virtually every series.

Starter Dan Nagelmann threw a touchdown on Cal Lutheran’s first possession when he flipped a shovel pass to Henderson who ran 53 yards for the score.

Second-team quarterback Tim Zeddies accounted for two fourth-quarter touchdowns, scoring on a one-yard keeper and hitting Tony Leogrande on a 36-yard post pattern.

Zeddies’ touchdown pass was the first of his college career.

“We’re still very unsettled at quarterback,” Shoup said. “It’s still a tossup.”

While Shoup’s substitutions allowed everyone to gain experience, they also helped Cal Lutheran cope with the smog and take advantage of superior depth.

“We are thin,” said La Verne Coach Roland Ortmayer, who was forced to play several players both ways. “They were tired. I think mentally they made so many mistakes they just couldn’t hold up.”

The smog was choking, but La Verne defenders were also wallowing in Henderson’s exhaust after he motored by them on touchdown runs of 40 and 26 yards. He averaged a gaudy 12 yards a carry.

“He’s really a durable, evasive kind of runner,” Shoup said. “He has no speed.”

Henderson begged to differ.

“I felt very fast today,” he said. “They didn’t catch me from behind.”

Freshman Craig Ashley also scored for Cal Lutheran. His one-yard touchdown burst up the middle came two plays after he dashed 44 yards to the La Verne 16.

Ashley ran for 84 yards in nine carries.