SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University football team dug itself a huge hole in the first half and never recovered on the way to losing 33-10 to No. 9 West Chester University in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference championship game Saturday on a frigid, blustery day at Mihalik-Thompson Stadium.
 
West Chester finishes off a perfect regular season with a 10-0 record and snaps a skid of eight straight PSAC title game losses that dated back to 1971. Slippery Rock drops to 9-2 on the year and will now have its fate decided by the NCAA playoff selection committee, which will announce the playoff field Sunday evening at 5 p.m. at ncaa.com.
 
Slippery Rock was ranked seventh in Super Region One in the last set of regional rankings and has a strong case for staying in the seven spot, as at least two teams with two losses will make the playoff field from the region and SRU played the toughest opponent in week 11 with undefeated, ninth ranked West Chester. Notre Dame (11-0), LIU Post (10-0) and West Chester (10-0) are all locks for the playoffs, while Kutztown (9-1) is likely to remain in the top seven, as is New Haven (8-1), despite playing only nine Division II games. The final two spots will likely will be decided between 9-2 teams Slippery Rock, Hillsdale and Ohio Dominican.

The Rock opened the game Saturday with a 28-yard pass that set up Jake Chapla for a 32-yard field goal that tied the junior for the SRU career record with his 35th career make and gave SRU an early 3-0 lead. That lead would be short lived, as West Chester rushed for 75 yards on its first possession and took a lead it would never relinquish.

The Golden Rams played a near flawless first half on both sides of the ball, while Slippery Rock struggled to execute and committed numerous costly mistakes. Those miscues included a roughing the kicker penalty on a punt on 4th and 14 that extended a drive and led to a TD for WCU, a dropped interception that landed in the hands of a WCU receiver for a touchdown, a pass interference call on a third down incompletion that resulted in a scoring drive and an interception that set up another scoring drive.
 
That interception came after Slippery Rock stopped a 27-0 run when Roland Rivers III hit Henry Litwin for a 51-yard TD pass to make it 27-10 with 2:02 to play in the half. The Rock defense forced a three-and-out on the next WCU series and moved the ball up near midfield with a chance to swing momentum back and cut the deficit to 10 points, but an interception was returned deep into SRU territory to set up a West Chester TD that sent the game to the break at 33-10.
 
The Golden Rams put up 294 total yards of offense on 43 plays in the first half, while Slippery Rock managed just 106 yards on 28 plays. Neither team would score a single point in the final 30 minutes. The Rock defense held West Chester to just 50 total yards of offense in the second half, but the SRU offense continued to commit costly mistakes to stop scoring chances.
 
West Chester finished the game with 344 yards of offense with 191 rushing yards and 153 passing yards. Slippery Rock put up 243 yards with 145 passing yards and 98 rushing yards.
 
Rivers struggled in the frigid temperatures and with wind gusts that topped 30 miles per hour for most of the game, making passing difficult. He completed just 6-of-31 passes for 145 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions, the most he has thrown in nine games as the SRU starting QB.
 
Litwin caught two passes for 81 yards and one touchdown, which was a highlight reel play that went for 51 yards. He beat two penalties on the play as WCU was called for holding him down the sideline and for pass interference, but still made the grab and broke a tackle for the score.
 
Wes Hills rushed for 92 yards against the nation's top-ranked rushing defense and caught two passes for 26 yards to finish with a team-high 118 all-purpose yards. Mike Merhaut had one 10-yard catch, extending his streak to 21 straight games with a catch.
 
The Rock defense was paced by Tim Vernick with 11 total tackles, while Brad Zaffram added nine stops and 2.0 tackles for loss. Trysten McDonald also had nine tackles and Tim Soave forced one fumble, which was recovered by Rahdezz Henderson, for the only WCU turnover of the day.
 
West Chester was paced by the game's Most Valuable Player in quarterback A.J. Long, who ran for more than 100 yards in the first half and finished the day with four total touchdowns. He threw for 153 yards and three scores on 13 completions and rushed for 135 yards and one score on 30 carries. Lex Rosario had four receptions for 80 yards and one TD and Jarey Elder came up with two interceptions, including the one late in the first half that killed any momentum SRU was building.
 
Slippery Rock was playing in the PSAC championship game for a league-leading fifth time since 2011 after The Rock won the PSAC Western Division with a perfect 7-0 mark. SRU will learn its playoff fate Sunday evening at 5 p.m.
 
NOTES: SRU receiver Henry Litwin was named the PSAC Champion Scholar Award winner before the game for having the highest GPA of all players in the title game ... West Chester snapped a streak of eight straight PSAC championship game losses that dated back to 1971 … The Rock had won the last four straight PSAC title games against West Chester and are now 4-3 against WCU in the PSAC title game … SRU is 10-9 all-time against WCU now and dropped its first game in the last four years against the Rams … the teams have now met five years in a row with at least one team being ranked in each of the five meetings … SRU kicker Jake Chapla made his only FG attempt of the day from 32 yards to tie the SRU career record of 35 makes, matching Morgan Anderson and CJ Bahr for the record with a full year to go … Chapla scored four points in the game to bring his career tally to 251 points, making him the fifth player in SRU history to score 250 or more points … Roland Rivers III dropped his first game since taking over as the SRU starting QB in week three … he threw his 22nd passing TD of the season to rank sixth on the SRU single-season ledger … Wes Hills increased his season rushing total to 1,215 yards in just over eight games of work … if Saturday's game was the end of the season for SRU, it will conclude the 10th consecutive winning season for Slippery Rock and will mark the end of the careers for the SRU seniors, which finished their four-year career with an overall record of 36-11.
 

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