“NOW MORE THAN EVER” 1
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Reaching for the restart button<br />
including a 1-yard touchdown run on 21<br />
Longwell concentrates on changing Capital’s momentum<br />
carries.<br />
By Paul Batterson<br />
“It was such a good feeling in the<br />
on a fourth and 1 at the Otterbein 35 with our offensive huddle.”<br />
locker room after we came away with the<br />
It could be very easy less than a minute to play.<br />
“Playing at Darby definitely helped victory,” Longwell says.<br />
for Chase Longwell Capital closes out the season against prepare me,” Longwell adds. “My<br />
Since the Sept. 21 win, the Crusaders<br />
to get discouraged. visiting Muskingum (1-7 overall) on coaches were great; they harped on have been trying to recapture that feeling.<br />
In the Hilliard Darby High School<br />
Saturday and Wilmington (0-8) on Nov. discipline, discipline, discipline. That is The month of October was particularly<br />
graduate’s first eight games as quarterback<br />
16. The Muskies, sixth in the league in one of the things (Candeto), coming from ruthless to Capital. It didn’t help that the<br />
for the Capital University football team,<br />
scoring defense (30.1), are allowing 214.9 the U.S. Naval Academy, preaches all the Crusaders’ faced three teams ranked in<br />
the Crusaders have lost as many games as<br />
the Panthers did in the last three years of<br />
yards through the air and 134.9 yards on<br />
time.”<br />
the top 15 of the Division III poll released<br />
Longwell was set to attend Georgetown<br />
Longwell’s career there.<br />
the ground per game. Wilmington dwells<br />
on Oct. 28, including top-ranked Mount<br />
College in Kentucky when Capital hired Union (currently 8-0 overall), ninthranked<br />
Heidelberg (7-1) and 15th ranked<br />
As Capital (1-7 overall, 1-6 in the Ohio near the bottom of most of the OAC’s<br />
Candeto as its head coach. Candeto, who<br />
defensive categories including scoring<br />
rushed and passed for more than 1,000 John Carroll (8-0).<br />
yards as a quarterback his senior year Capital was outscored 185-20 in a 54-0<br />
with Navy in 2003, eventually convinced loss at John Carroll on Oct. 5, a 73-17 loss<br />
Longwell to sign with Capital.<br />
at Heidelberg on Oct. 12 and 58-3 loss to<br />
“I actually verbally committed to Mount Union on Oct. 19.<br />
Georgetown but coach Candeto came Longwell says the team is trying to<br />
around and changed my mind,” Longwell learn from its losses.<br />
says. “I really liked everything he was “The losses have been learning<br />
about and what he stood for and what he experiences for us,” Longwell said. “We<br />
had planned for this program.”<br />
learned from (the lopsided losses) even<br />
Longwell found out there’s huge though they weren’t great games for us.”<br />
different between high school and college Longwell says he would like to see his<br />
football in the first few weeks of the team play at the level of a Mount Union.<br />
Crusaders’ practices. The speed of the The Purple Raiders are to Division III<br />
<strong>“NOW</strong> <strong>MORE</strong> <strong>THAN</strong> <strong>EVER”</strong><br />
16<br />
Chase Longwell, shown here throwing a pass against Thomas More (Ky.) game on<br />
Sept. 7, says he has had to adjust to the speed of the college game.<br />
Photos (2) by Jeff Mills/Capital University Athletics.<br />
Athletic Conference) gets ready to take on<br />
Muskingum University on Saturday, the<br />
freshman refuses to give up.<br />
“Things are starting to turn around<br />
here,” says Longwell, who completed<br />
five of 10 passes for 32 yards and rushed<br />
nine times for six yards in a 19-14 loss to<br />
rival Otterbein on Nov. 2. “(Coach Craig)<br />
Candeto keeps talking about ‘Changing<br />
Momentum.’ We need to take all the bad<br />
stuff that has happened in the past and just<br />
really change it around for the better. We<br />
need to keep pushing forward.”<br />
As the only freshman starting at<br />
quarterback in the 10-team OAC,<br />
Longwell completed 34 of his 69 passing<br />
attempts (49.3 percent) for 442 yards with<br />
four touchdowns and four interceptions<br />
and is the team’s second leading rusher<br />
with 398 yards and two touchdowns on<br />
129 carries.<br />
The Crusaders came up six points short<br />
of ending their current six-game slide<br />
against Otterbein. Brent Walton scored on<br />
a 6-yard touchdown run with 9:36 left to<br />
play in the game to cut Capital’s deficit to<br />
16-14. However the Cardinals went on a<br />
13-play, 6:04 drive that ended with a 22-<br />
yard field goal by Alana Gaither with 3:26<br />
left to play. The Crusaders were stopped<br />
defense (ninth allowing 49.3 points per<br />
game), pass defense (ninth, 240.6 yards)<br />
and rush defense (seventh, 225.4).<br />
Longwell has been a part of turning<br />
programs around before. His freshman<br />
year at Darby, the Panthers sputtered to<br />
a 3-6 finish. Over the next three years,<br />
Darby went 26-7overall, including an<br />
11-1 finish Longwell’s senior year, and<br />
made the Division I Region 3 playoffs in<br />
2010 and 2012.<br />
Longwell played safety all four years<br />
and after serving as a backup quarterback<br />
his first two years, took over as the<br />
starting quarterback his junior year. He<br />
completed 97 of 165 passes for 1,551<br />
yards with 17 touchdowns with three<br />
interceptions and rushed for 1,574 yards<br />
and 25 touchdowns on 277 carries his<br />
junior and senior years.<br />
“Chase is a tremendous competitor.<br />
Whenever we needed a yard, Chase<br />
Longwell got the ball,” Panthers coach<br />
John Santagata says. “While at Darby,<br />
Chase demonstrated a great work ethic<br />
in practices, the weight room, and the<br />
classroom. He was a special type of leader<br />
who commanded respect naturally. (It<br />
was) never forced. His teammates always<br />
listened when he spoke as he commanded<br />
Chase Longwell takes off against Ohio Northern on Sept. 28.<br />
game is light years ahead of high school.<br />
“Those first couple days of practices<br />
were definitely an eye opener,” says<br />
Longwell, who is majoring in nursing. “In<br />
high school, I was completely used to the<br />
speed of the game (at that level). Then all<br />
of sudden I’m stepping in and competing<br />
with all these other guys who were used<br />
to how fast the game is.”<br />
Longwell didn’t see much playing time<br />
in a 20-0 loss to Thomas More in the<br />
Sept. 7 opener, throwing just one pass<br />
(an incompletion) and rushing six times<br />
for 19 yards. A week later, he emerged<br />
as the starter in the Crusaders’ 42-13 win<br />
at Marietta on Sept. 21. The 5-foot-10,<br />
191-pound freshman completed seven<br />
of 12 passes for 150 yards with two<br />
touchdowns and rushed for 95 yards<br />
what Alabama is to Division I. Since<br />
2005, Mount Union is 115-5 with eight<br />
OAC titles and four national titles. Four<br />
out of their five losses have come in the<br />
Stagg Bowl, the Division III national title<br />
game. The Purple Raiders’ last league<br />
setback was a 21-14 loss to Ohio Northern<br />
in 2005.<br />
“They played at a different level than<br />
what we were used to. The first thing<br />
we noticed is they did their assignments<br />
to perfection,” Longwell says. “To beat<br />
teams like that, you have to be perfect at<br />
everything you do.<br />
“Those guys come into the game<br />
expecting to win every single game.<br />
That’s something we can take as a<br />
program and put that with what we have<br />
to do in the future.”
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