Locals help Indiana State football team finally end its 33-game losing streak
Indiana State finally ended its 33-game D-I losing streak Saturday but as Sycamores star Ben Geffert said: 'We knew we were gonna win that game.'
BY AL HAMNIK - [email protected]
Surprise. Surprise. Hulking football linemen do cry.
So do their proud dads who once played the game with Butkus-like intensity.
The tears fell for Griffith's Ben and Tom Geffert when Indiana State snapped its 33-game losing streak, longest in Division I football, with a 17-14 win over Western Illinois at Saturday's homecoming.
"Ben was just beside himself after the game," Tom said of his son, a 6-foot-3, 285-pound Sycamores right guard. "Both of us are pretty emotional people. Yeah, we left about a gallon of salt water out there on the field."
The Sycamores hadn't won a game since edging Missouri State 28-22 on Oct. 21, 2006.
Ben Geffert and Antoine Brown, a running back from Portage, had a say in Saturday's happy outcome.
Quarterback Ryan Roberts rushed for 160 yards and two touchdowns, with Geffert pulling on many of those plays, while Brown had 14 carries for 58 yards and caught one pass for 3 yards.
"This is the third homecoming I've been to, and usually there's a lot of people there in the parking lot, in what they call 'Tent City.' But then when the game starts, it's a sparse crowd inside," said Tom Geffert, a former Clark standout and Hammond Sports Hall of Fame inductee. "There were a few more people than normal in the stands, but as the game progressed, the stands got fuller.
"As they heard what was going on, they started drifting into the stadium. By the end of the game, it was pretty much a packed house."
A crowd of 6,028 watched on the edge of their seats as the Sycamores drove 80 yards for Roberts' game-winning TD with 4:12 to play.
"We knew we were gonna win that game. There was no doubt in anybody's mind," Ben Geffert said. "We worked hard throughout the week and prepared to win. Afterward, fans rushed the field. I had never heard the stadium that loud. It was pretty emotional.
"We just sat in the locker room. We all wanted to soak it in for a while. My dad brought an RV down and we had a lot of family and friends, so I was over there for a while."
There was no wild partying, no driving through downtown Terre Haute with heads out the window, shouting and shaking noisemakers.
"I was drained," Geffert said. "I just wanted to go to sleep (because) we had practice Sunday."
The Griffith grad began this season as ISU's starting center, but he was moved to guard when second-year coach Trent Miles and staff decided to make some personnel changes. After all, that losing streak, fourth-longest in D-I football history, had lasted more than three seasons.
"A lot of times, as a team, it seemed like we didn't know how to finish a game," Geffert said. "So it was good for the defense to hold 'em and then our offense take a game-winning drive of 80 yards. It proved to us and to everybody else that we have the confidence to pull out a win."
Of the 87 rostered players, only four had ever won a game at ISU, now 1-7 overall.
"I didn't want the seniors to go out winless, again," Geffert said. "They'd been here for the entire thing. I'm friends with a lot of the older guys, and I couldn't let that happen to them.
"That was a big part of my motivation."
Indiana State finally ended its 33-game D-I losing streak Saturday but as Sycamores star Ben Geffert said: 'We knew we were gonna win that game.'
BY AL HAMNIK - [email protected]
Surprise. Surprise. Hulking football linemen do cry.
So do their proud dads who once played the game with Butkus-like intensity.
The tears fell for Griffith's Ben and Tom Geffert when Indiana State snapped its 33-game losing streak, longest in Division I football, with a 17-14 win over Western Illinois at Saturday's homecoming.
"Ben was just beside himself after the game," Tom said of his son, a 6-foot-3, 285-pound Sycamores right guard. "Both of us are pretty emotional people. Yeah, we left about a gallon of salt water out there on the field."
The Sycamores hadn't won a game since edging Missouri State 28-22 on Oct. 21, 2006.
Ben Geffert and Antoine Brown, a running back from Portage, had a say in Saturday's happy outcome.
Quarterback Ryan Roberts rushed for 160 yards and two touchdowns, with Geffert pulling on many of those plays, while Brown had 14 carries for 58 yards and caught one pass for 3 yards.
"This is the third homecoming I've been to, and usually there's a lot of people there in the parking lot, in what they call 'Tent City.' But then when the game starts, it's a sparse crowd inside," said Tom Geffert, a former Clark standout and Hammond Sports Hall of Fame inductee. "There were a few more people than normal in the stands, but as the game progressed, the stands got fuller.
"As they heard what was going on, they started drifting into the stadium. By the end of the game, it was pretty much a packed house."
A crowd of 6,028 watched on the edge of their seats as the Sycamores drove 80 yards for Roberts' game-winning TD with 4:12 to play.
"We knew we were gonna win that game. There was no doubt in anybody's mind," Ben Geffert said. "We worked hard throughout the week and prepared to win. Afterward, fans rushed the field. I had never heard the stadium that loud. It was pretty emotional.
"We just sat in the locker room. We all wanted to soak it in for a while. My dad brought an RV down and we had a lot of family and friends, so I was over there for a while."
There was no wild partying, no driving through downtown Terre Haute with heads out the window, shouting and shaking noisemakers.
"I was drained," Geffert said. "I just wanted to go to sleep (because) we had practice Sunday."
The Griffith grad began this season as ISU's starting center, but he was moved to guard when second-year coach Trent Miles and staff decided to make some personnel changes. After all, that losing streak, fourth-longest in D-I football history, had lasted more than three seasons.
"A lot of times, as a team, it seemed like we didn't know how to finish a game," Geffert said. "So it was good for the defense to hold 'em and then our offense take a game-winning drive of 80 yards. It proved to us and to everybody else that we have the confidence to pull out a win."
Of the 87 rostered players, only four had ever won a game at ISU, now 1-7 overall.
"I didn't want the seniors to go out winless, again," Geffert said. "They'd been here for the entire thing. I'm friends with a lot of the older guys, and I couldn't let that happen to them.
"That was a big part of my motivation."