Covenant News

Vikings Win Opener on Last-Minute Touchdown

GREENVILLE, IL (September 8, 2003) - Phil DeWald ran 26 yards for the winning touchdown with 40 seconds left as the North Park University (NPU) Vikings opened their football season by edging host Greenville College 24-17 in a non-league game Saturday.

Greenville had rallied from a 17-0 deficit and tied the game on a 58-yard touchdown pass from Lee Thompson to Bryson Taylor with 1:37 left. NPU started its winning drive from its own 34 yard line as tailback Dante Britten ran twice for 33 yards and DeWald threw a 7 yard completion to Stuart Riepl before scrambling in for the winning score.

In the final seconds, Stephen Fouche intercepted a Thompson pass to ice the win. Earlier in the game, Alfredo Cruz had an interception for the Vikings, who play the University of Chicago Saturday at 1:00 p.m. at Elmhurst College. NPU's home field is currently being rebuilt. (See NPU Football Looks Forward to New Stadium, Rebuilt Team)

NPU started strongly as Christien Thomsen kicked a 30-yard field goal 2:49 into the game to give the Vikings a 3-0 lead. The score was set up by a Cruz fumble recovery.

Josh Gruenewald scored on a 12-yard run at the 3:59 mark of the opening quarter to put NPU on top 10-0 and 3:11 later DeWald threw a 35-yard scoring pass to Jon Harris to up the lead to 17-0.

DeWald finished 12 for 25 passing for 145 yards and ran 10 times for 46 yards. Britten had 79 yards on the ground and Gruenewald added 47 for the Vikings. Defensively, Jonathan Schwan was in on 13 tackles as NPU managed to hold off a stellar Greenville passing game.

Thompson totaled 318 yards of passing for the contest. He threw a 58-yard scoring pass to Taylor for his team's first touchdown as well.

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