Occidental’s Offense Comes Alive Behind Werbelow, 23-13

In its first meeting with the University of Redlands this season, Occidental was unable to score an offensive touchdown. Possibly Tony Werbelow’s absence had something to do with it.

Werbelow, who sat out that game because of a bruised shoulder, showed up healthy for Saturday evening’s rematch, a 23-13 Occidental victory.

The Tigers (6-2, 5-0 in conference play) are assured of at least a Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference co-championship and face Whittier on Saturday with an opportunity to win the championship outright.

“This was my game,” said Werbelow, who completed 27 of 36 attempts for 293 yards and a touchdown. “The coach put a lot of pressure on me and, hey, it paid off.”

Sophomore receiver Rob Leinbach caught a 9-yard Werbelow pass in the end zone with 7:15 remaining for the winning score, breaking a 13-13 tie.

“Tony’s just awesome,” said Leinbach, who caught 8 passes for a game-high 96 yards. “They were sending me on lots of short routes because they don’t like to throw me streaks--I’m not known for my speed.”

Mark Collinsworth added a 22-yard field goal with 30 seconds remaining to provide the final margin of victory.

Though this was possibly Werbelow’s finest performance this season, Coach Dale Widolff was nonplussed.

“He’s good,” Widolff said. “We did some good things but we didn’t put the ball in the end zone. And we didn’t play good defense in the first half.”

Werbelow misfired on a pass at the Redlands goal line that was picked off by Patrick McLeod with 20 seconds remaining in the half, killing a drive. McLeod scampered to the Redlands 40 and the Bulldogs (4-4, 3-2) ran out the clock.

On the preceding possession, Redlands halfback Ruffin Patterson ran in from the 2 and Scott Daniels added the PAT to tie the score, 13-13.

Bulldog quarterback Rob Lough slipped away from linebacker Dave Hodges at the Tigers’ 35 and connected with tight end Carl Schoeder at the Occidental 2 to set up Patterson’s score.