COLLEGE FOOTBALL Slippery Rock shakes off bad half in win over Tiffin

The Rock scored 35 points in the second half to beat Tiffin, 45-13.
By BILL ALBRIGHT
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. -- Like Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities," Saturday's football game between Slippery Rock and Tiffin was a tale of two halves.
Tiffin won the first half by a slim 13-10 margin before The Rock scored 28 unanswered points in the third period en route to a 45-13 win.
Going into the game, SRU coach George Mihalik was worried Slippery Rock would underestimate Tiffin after last week's convincing 40-7 win over Florida American.
"Actually I told them this morning at the pregame meal," said Mihalik. "I really didn't say too much at halftime because I think they [the players] realized the mistake we had made," Mihalik said.
Maturity needed: "What it shows is that we are not a very mature football team because we don't know how to handle success, but at the same time, it shows good character in that we came back.
Mihalik knows his team can't make that mistake again.
"We did play very well in the second half, but we simply can't underestimate opponents like we did today. Sometime it is going to come back to haunt us."
SRU killed itself with mental mistakes and costly penalties (5-50 yards) in the first half. Tiffin, however, played well.
"We kept stopping ourselves," said Mihalik. "Two guys in motion. There is no excuse for that. There is no excuse for late hits and what we did was keep giving them great field position."
Can't compete: Although his club led at the break, Tiffin coach Cam Cruickshank realized that his team still can't compete in Division II for 60 minutes.
"We talked about it in the lockerroom about how we had to be intense, play physical and with the same emotion we had in the first half," Cruickshank said.
"But we are not used to playing people like Slippery Rock."
The Rock stayed close in the first half on a 6-yard touchdown run by Dorrian Glenn and a 40-yard field goal by Wyatt Campbell.
In the second half, Slippery Rock broke loose for a 35-point onslaught.
Gaining steam: Quarterback Tim Arthurs got things rolling when he turned a broken play into a 20-yard touchdown that saw him reverse his field no less than three times.
"It was actually supposed to be an inside pitch to Dorrian [Glenn], but they took that away from us so I had to take off," said Arthurs.
Then the backfield duo of Glenn and Brandon Markus took over. Glenn scored on runs of 63 and 72 yards while teammate Markus rambled in from 4 yards out.
Glenn finished with 238 yards on 20 carries and three touchdowns.
Arthurs connected with D.J. Flick for a 25-yard scoring play in the final minutes of the third period.