PUEBLO — Somewhere in the arc of a coin flipping through the air, from thumb to apex to the artificial turf where it fell, the Colorado State-Pueblo football team turned from powerful to peewee.
Grand Valley (Mich.) State, led by a sophomore quarterback who stands 6-foot-5 with an arm to match, gladly accepted a deferred coin flip, won by CSU-Pueblo.
And on the game’s first play from scrimmage, Bart Williams, Grand Valley’s long-haired slinger, winged a 65-yard touchdown pass to Matt Williams. CSU-Pueblo, the defending Division II champion, was winded.
Like a plastic bag blowing in the breeze, CSU-Pueblo got tossed around Saturday as Grand Valley State blew out the ThunderWolves 31-7 in a quarterfinal mismatch that drew 4,325 fans to the ThunderBowl.
“When I threw it, I wasn’t expecting that,” Williams said. “I think the wind caught it and helped me out, put the ball where it needed to be.”
CSU-Pueblo (12-2), which won its first national championship last season and its fifth consecutive Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference title this season, never recovered from its first-play deficit.
“That’s as good a ball as I’ve seen thrown,” CSU-Pueblo coach John Wristen said of the long TD pass that put his team in a ditch. “And they kept gaining traction after that.”
Grand Valley State (12-2), which finished third in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, upset a third team ranked in the top five in as many weeks. The Lakers advanced to meet No. 5 Shepherd (W.Va.) in the national semifinals next weekend.
“A big factor was the coin flip,” said Grand Valley State coach Matt Mitchell. “We wanted to take some shots. So we hooked up on the first play.”
Grand Valley State rode a slipstream. The Lakers led 14-0 after five minutes. They led 21-0 midway through the first quarter. Marty Carter and Kirk Spencer ran for touchdowns on two drives that lasted less than five minutes combined.
Spencer, who suffered a broken leg on a hit at the 3-yard line, kept plugging to score his 7-yarder. Carter, his backup, took over and finished with 231 yards rushing.
CSU-Pueblo scored late in the first quarter when quarterback AJ Thompson found Patrick O’Malley for a 5-yard TD pass. But the ThunderWolves had only 75 total yards in the first half. Grand Valley State finished the game with 527 total yards. The ThunderWolves had 157.
During the second quarter, Carter took a shotgun handoff, faked a draw run, then threw a 22-yard pass into the wind for a touchdown strike to Nick Keizer. The Lakers managed the clock the rest of the way.
“You can’t be timid and win playoff games,” Mitchell said.
CSU-Pueblo senior Cameron McDondle (106 yards Saturday), Division II’s second-leading rusher this year, and his brother, eighth-best sophomore Bernard McDondle (8 yards), set a D-II record for most yards rushing in a season by a tandem with 3,674. They helped the ThunderWolves average more than 300 yards rushing per game this year.
But after CSU-Pueblo fell behind quickly Saturday, there wasn’t enough time to run down a rally.
“That was definitely surprising,” said CSU-Pueblo freshman linebacker Branon Payer. “I didn’t think they’d start like that. But you have to be able to rebound. And we didn’t.”
Nick Groke: ngroke@denverpost.com or @nickgroke
