Johnnies open MIAC season with 28-24 loss at Bethel
ARDEN HILLS — Though his team came into Saturday afternoon’s MIAC opener against Bethel undefeated and ranked No. 2 in the nation in Division III, St. John’s head coach Gary Fasching still saw reason for concern.
Against the Royals, those concerns became reality.
Bethel - ranked No. 20 in the latest D3football.com Division III top 25 poll - came up with a series of big plays when it needed them most en route to beating the Johnnies 28-24 before a crowd of 7,314 at Royal Stadium.
Royals senior quarterback Jaran Roste - who returned to action for the first time since injuring his left elbow in his team’s season opener on Sept. 3 - threw for 321 yards and three touchdowns - including a 72-yarder to sophomore Michah Niewald with 9:22 remaining that put his team ahead to stay.
That touchdown came just after the Johnnies had taken a 24-21 lead on a 5-yard touchdown run by senior Henry Trost.
“That’s the No. 1 thing we talk about with our defense,” said Fasching, whose team began the season with nonconference wins over Wisconsin-Whitewater (ranked No. 4) and Wisconsin-River Falls (ranked No. 19). “You can’t give up big plays. You win a game like this on defense and you can’t do that when you give up the kind of plays we did today.
“This is why I don’t put any stock in rankings,” he continued. “(Alabama head coach) Nick Saban calls them rat poison. Sometimes, I think it can make you feel like you’re better than you actually are. We did some really good things the first two games, but I also saw areas where we needed to improve.
“Eventually, those will show through and they did for us today.”
Trost - himself returning from an ankle injury suffered in a 37-34 win over Wisconsin-River Falls on Sept. 10 - carried the ball 21 times for 105 yards and two touchdowns. Johnnies junior quarterback Aaron Syverson threw for 313 yards and a touchdown, but also had a pair of interceptions - including one on third down at the Bethel 35 with 6:53 remaining and another on 3rd-and-10 at the St. John’s 30 with just over two minutes to go.
“We made too many mistakes today across the board,” Syverson said. “We need to have better execution on both sides of the ball if we want to beat a team as good as Bethel.”
In all, the Johnnies put up 414 yards of total offense and had two receivers cross the 100-yard mark in senior tight end Alex Larson (eight catches for 114 yards) and junior wide receiver Jimmy Buck (seven catches for 113 yards, including a 58-yard touchdown catch in the third quarter that put his team on top 17-14).
Saturday marked the first time the Royals have beaten the Johnnies since 2013 - Fasching’s first season as head coach. It was just the tenth win in 44 meetings between the two schools. St. John’s had won eight-straight in the series, including two victories last season – a 31-25 victory in Collegeville and a last-second 29-28 win in the inaugural MIAC Championship Game in Arden Hills.
It also marked just the second time since in Fasching’s tenure as head coach that the Johnnies have lost a game they led at halftime and/or the start of the fourth quarter. St. John’s returns home to play host to Concordia for Homecoming at 1 p.m. next Saturday in Collegeville.
“We just have to flush this one and move on,” Johnnies senior defensive lineman Michael Wozniak said. “There’s no reason to mope around or hang our heads and sulk. We have some things we need to improve, but we’re only three games into the season. We have to regroup and come out better next week.”
This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: St. John's loses close game in MIAC opener against Bethel
