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Wednesday, December 04, 2002

The postseason was unkind to IUP, Washington and Jefferson, and Duquesne, whose wildly successful seasons were dampened by final losses in games that weren't competitive.

The scores were brutal:

Grand Valley State, 62, IUP 21, second round of the NCAA Division II playoffs.

Trinity, Texas 45, W&J 10, second round of NCAA Division III playoffs.

Albany 24, Duquesne 0, ECAC Classic.

"This is as disappointing a loss that I've been around at IUP," Coach Frank Cignetti said. "We didn't show up. You have to separate the 11 games we won in a row from the way we finished. That's hard to do."

Cignetti swallowed, then said: "This lingers. It's hard to remember the good things."

Asked if the lopsided defeat diminishes, in any way, IUP's 11-2 season, Cignetti answered: "The way the loss was, yes. But you have to bounce back."

The healing will begin this week when Cignetti meets with his players to talk about the future and the past.

"This was not the end of IUP football," Cignetti said. "IUP will be back."

But it's not a done deal that John Banaszak will be back to coach W&J next season. He has taken the Presidents to the playoffs in each of his first four seasons, but his yearly contract is up Dec. 31, and he has yet to be offered a new one.

"I'm working as if I'm going to be the head coach at W&J next year. I'd like to stay at W&J," he said.

Athletic Director Rick Creehan didn't return numerous phone calls to the Post-Gazette this week.

Banaszak, whose name has been linked to coaching jobs elsewhere in the past, said he hasn't been contacted recently about openings. His focus now is on recruiting.

"We have to replace 18 very talented seniors," he said. "The critical need for us, as always, is going to be speed."

W&J literally was run off the field by a swift Trinity team.

"When you lose like that, there are less what-ifs than if you lost a close game. There are no second guesses," he said. "I want them to remember what it felt like to go down there and to get hammered good, but it still doesn't take away any of what we accomplished this season."

The Presidents won the Presidents' Athletic Conference championship and finished 9-3.

"We have to take all of the positive things and build on those," he said. "When I meet with the players we'll touch on it, but we won't dwell on the game. We may talk about that as a barometer to where we want to be."

Unlike IUP and W&J, heavy underdogs, Duquesne was a solid favorite to defeat an Albany team with four losses. But the Dukes couldn't overcome the wind, the cold, the sloppy field and Albany's relentless running attack. The loss left Duquesne at 11-1 and cost them the No. 1 ranking in NCAA Division I-AA Mid-Major. It also knocked them from the NCAA Division I-AA Top 25, which includes scholarship, partial scholarship and non-scholarship programs.

The loss also eliminated any chance Duquesne had of becoming the first non-scholarship team to receive an at-large bid to the Division I-AA playoffs.

"You can't take away what our kids accomplished," said Coach Greg Gattuso.

The Dukes won their fourth consecutive Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championship and were the last undefeated team in I-AA. "But [the loss] does leave a bad taste.

"It pops up at the worst times. When you're sitting alone, you think about it," he said. "I never forget any losses.

"I still have horrible memories of losing to Peters Township in the last regular-season game in 1989 in my first year as head coach at Seton-LaSalle."

With 13 starters returning, Gattuso is looking forward to another blockbuster season in 2003.

"At every position we lose somebody, we feel we have talent coming back," he said. "The future of Duquesne football is strong."

Phil Axelrod can be reached at paxelrod@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1967.