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By PAUL DELANEY
Staff Reporter 

Youngstown's 1997 playoff win still pretty fresh for Aaron Best

 

Last updated 12/15/2016 at 12:17pm

EWU Athletics

Current Eastern coach Aaron Best, seen here in his playing days, recalled the last time Youngstown State came calling.

When the Youngstown Penguins last visited this part of the country, Dec. 13, 1997 to face the Eastern Washington Eagles, Cooper Kupp was 4, Gage Gubrud and Samson Ebukam were each 2, the latter likely still in his native Nigeria.

One guy who still remembers it all well - the Pens' 25 -14 escape from a cold and snow-covered Joe Albi Stadium in Spokane in a semifinal-round playoff game - is Aaron Best, then an Eagles offensive lineman for head coach Mike Kramer.

"The memories from that game are few and far between but as a player remembering how dang cold it was, don't mess up any short or long snaps," Best, the current offensive coordinator, offensive line coach and academic coordinator at Eastern, said.

The Youngstown win sent them to Chattanooga, Tenn. to face McNeese State in the I-AA title game, won by the Penguins 10-9.

Youngstown, coached by the legendary Jim Tressel, who went on to Ohio State, and now is back as YSU's president, nursed a 7-0 lead in the game going into halftime.

The Penguins upped that to 17-0 with 6 minutes, 32 seconds to go in the third quarter before Eastern had the crowd of 8,529 cheering as they quickly closed the gap. In a span of 2:06, touchdowns by Joe Mitchell - a 10-yard pass from Harry Leons - and Maurice Perigo's 83-yard punt return made it a 17-14 contest.

Heading into the fourth quarter, Leons orchestrated yet another drive, this one that reached the Youngstown 8, but ended on an interception in the end zone with 8:19 left. Youngstown went on a textbook, clock-killing drive to the EWU 25 that ended on an incomplete pass with 1:49 to play, but stuck Eastern deep in their own end of the field.

Eastern got the ball back but could not move it, turning it back to YSU on the Eagles' 25. Four plays later, Adrian Brown's second touchdown of the game with 44 seconds to play sealed it.

Eastern, which finished 12-2, had five turnovers on the day, three crucial ones in the red zone. "The turnovers were the difference," Kramer said in a Cheney Free Press story.

One was especially damning - the non-fumble as many Eagles care to term it - and came with just 3:09 gone in the third quarter.

"The unfortunate possible 'non call' of Harry Leons's fumble that stood as a fumble that inevitably turned the momentum of that game squarely in their favor," Best said. Mike Stanic ran the ball back 73 yards to put Youngstown up 14-0.

While Eastern had returned to playing the majority of games on campus at Woodward Field, their three 1AA playoff games versus Northwestern State (40-10 win) and Western Kentucky (38-21 win) were all played in Spokane.

"Playing at Albi was fine but it did feel like a pseudo road game having to travel to the stadium to prep for the game on Saturday," Best recalled.

Best called the contest, "(A) tough hard-nosed game in which two teams went at it and there can only be one winner - unfortunately it was not us on that day."

The guys with no memories of that game, and no grudges to settle, try to even the score for the Eagles Saturday in Cheney.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.

 

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