Hope College football coach Peter Stuursma described his team's historic 2024 season as "an incredible run, an incredible journey" that featured an outright Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association championship, the most wins ever by a Hope team in a season, and the Flying Dutchmen's first-ever NCAA Division III playoff victory.
That journey came to an end Saturday afternoon in Naperville, Illinois, as Hope lost to North Central College, the top-ranked team in Division III all season long, 41-21, on a sunny and breezy afternoon at Benedetti-Wehrli Stadium in Naperville, Illinois.
The Flying Dutchmen concluded their season at 11-1, while the Cardinals will take a 12-0 mark into a quarterfinal matchup on Saturday, Dec. 14 against Springfield (Massachusetts) College, which upset defending national champion Cortland State (N.Y.) 40-28 on Saturday. North Central is seeking a fifth consecutive Stagg Bowl appearances in the national championship game.
"Congratulations to North Central. They're the number one team in the county for a reason," Stuursma said. "They're a really good football team. They just were really good today."
The game started out well for the Flying Dutchmen, as senior defensive back Trevor Hansen (Wyoming, Michigan/Grand Rapids South Christian) intercepted a North Central pass on the game's opening possession. But Hope was unable to convert on the opportunity.
On Hope's second possession, the Flying Dutchmen drove into the red zone and looked to draw first blood. A bad shotgun snap from center resulted in an 8-yard-loss, followed by a false start penalty. That led to a 45-yard field goal attempt that was no good.
North Central opened the scoring early in the second quarter on a 1-yard touchdown run by Charles Coleman. The Flying Dutchmen dug into their bag of tricks to set up the tying touchdown, as senior punter Peter Costa (Macomb, Michigan / Dakota) ran 17 yards for a first down off a fake punt. That led to a 1-yard touchdown run by senior quarterback Ben Wellman (Bloomington, Illinois / Bloomington) that tied the game at 7-all.
The Cardinals responded with two touchdowns in the final 3-and-a-half minutes of the first half – a 6-yard run by Joe Sacco and a 3-yard touchdown pass from Luke Lehnen to Thomas Skonka – marking Lehnan's NCAA all-divisions record 56th straight game with a touchdown pass – and North Central led 21-7 at halftime.
After a Cardinal field goal early in the third quarter extended the North Central lead to 17, Hope came back with a 68-yard, six-play drive. Wellman connected with fifth-year senior Grant Holtzer (Okemos, Michigan / Okemos) with a 22-yard touchdown pass, and Hope trailed only 24-14.
But that would be as close as the Flying Dutchmen would get in the second half. North Central scored the next 17 points to put the game away. Hope got one final score in the waning seconds on a 3-yard touchdown pass from Wellman to Holtzer.
The Flying Dutchmen, who entered the game in the top five nationally in both rushing offense and total offense, was held well below its season averages, gaining 167 yards each rushing and passing for 334 yards of total offense. The Cardinals, meanwhile, rushed for 252 yards against a Hope defense that had held its opponents to 44 yards per game up until Saturday, and finished with 486 yards total offense. Hope also committed three turnovers, two interceptions and a fumble.
Nonetheless, Stuursma was pleased with the effort and fight his team showed until the very end, adding that character will carry his players in whatever they do after their football careers end.
"I'll take our guys anywhere, anytime – play anyone, anywhere, anytime, because that's the way they are," he said. "Those kind of things translate from the football field to the real world, when life gets hard. If that's the worst thing that happens to us, losing in the (third) round of the playoffs to a really good football team, they're going to have a pretty good life, aren't they? I think all of us in this room know that life is going to throw some curves at you. I'm super proud of our guys, the way they represented this institution of Hope."
Wellman, who is headed to dental school next year, accounted for 250 yards of total offense in his final game at quarterback for the Flying Dutchmen. He completed 13 of 27 passes for 167 yards and two touchdowns, and led the Hope ground game with 83 yards on 11 carries. Holtzer caught five passes for 103 yards and the two touchdowns, finishing the season with 1,052 receiving yards on 42 catches for a 25-yard per catch average, one of the highest averages ever by a Hope receiver.
Defensively, senior All-American linebacker Cole Luhmann (Rochester, Michigan / Stoney Creek) led Hope with 11 tackles, including a season-high five tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks, in his final game in a Flying Dutchmen uniform.
Sophomore linebacker Brad Raredon (Hudsonville, Michigan / Hudsonville) made eight tackles, as did senior defensive lineman Oatis Ackermann (East Grand Rapids, Michigan / East Grand Rapids).