Dubuque blows past Coe to gain playoff berth, share of IIAC title

CEDAR RAPIDS - The season could have gone a lot of different ways for the Dubuque Spartans after the first couple of weeks. Watching them hoist the Iowa Conference trophy near midfield in a whoop-it-up postgame celebration Saturday afternoon at Clark Field showed you the way it went.

The championship way it went.

'When I came here, that's what our goal was as a freshman class coming in,” said Dubuque's Blaine Snitker, after his team's 37-21 win over Coe clinched a share of the IIAC title. 'Just put four hard years of work into it, that was our goal. We finally got that (championship) this year.”

That's despite dropping their first two games of the season. Dubuque was crushed to the total tune of 76-16, albeit by nationally ranked teams St. John's (Minn) and Wisconsin-Platteville.

A two-point nipping of Pacific (Ore.) ended the brutal non-conference part of the schedule, and it has been nothing but wins in conference. Dubuque (7-2, 6-0) has a home game next week against Central and can still be tied for the title by Wartburg, but its impressive 45-13 thrashing of the eighth-ranked Knights last month has given them the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III playoffs.

'When you play that kind of non-conference competition, you hope it works out like it did this year,” said Coach Stan Zweifel, who led UD to the 2011 Iowa Conference championship. 'I can't say it has worked for us every year. We've played Platteville the last four years, we've played UW-La Crosse, then we picked up St. John's. That's not very smart scheduling on my part, but what you are trying to do is measure yourself against the best teams in the country and see if you can't get yourself to compete at that level.

'I don't know if we can, or we can't, but it's been a real nice run here these last seven games. We've gotten better, we have improved. If you saw us in Game 1 to now, I'm not sure I'd recognize our team because we've played so much better. As a coach, that's really what you hope is going to happen.”

Dubuque won this game with its back-up quarterback. Conor Feckley got the nod for injured Rio Johnson, a former starter at Division I East Carolina who couldn't play because of a leg injury.

A sophomore from Anchorage, Alaska, of all places, Feckley threw three touchdown passes in the first half to help the Spartans get out to a 30-6 lead. Dubuque intercepted Coe's Josh Rekers three times in the first half, including one by linebacker Snitker.

'Our first three games, I think those were the hardest three non-conference games any team in the nation played,” said the senior from Waukon. 'Coach puts us in those games for a reason, facing a high level of talent. We knew we could go 0-3 and still win conference because that's how tough it was. Just playing those tough teams kind of made us step up our level.”

'We had to have, I don't want to say a perfect game, but we couldn't have turnovers if we wanted to win,” said Coe Coach Steve Staker. 'We had three interceptions in the first half, and I think they had touchdowns after all of them. Those kind of things we are not good enough to overcome.”

Coe got a pair of touchdown catches from Elijah Phillips, with running back Sam Lahr chipping in 133 yards rushing and receiving. The Kohawks (3-6, 2-4) end their season next week at Buena Vista.

'Our program has always been very successful, and it's not us to be in this spot,” Staker said. 'That's been very disappointing. Was I expecting too much out of our guys that we were going to turn the corner at some point this season? I don't know.”

l Comments: (319) 398-8259; jeff.johnson@thegazette.com