Minerva Lions at Louisville Leopards 2002 Football Highlights

Gary Whaley Louisville Leopards 2002 Vs. Minerva Lions Football

Louisville 27, Minerva 0

In a muddy, rainy battle the Louisville Leopards shutout the visiting Minerva Lions 27-0 to complete a perfect 10-0 season on October 25, 2002. With the 10-0 mark Louisville was crowned DII AP Poll State Champions for the first time in school history.

“The rain and mud took our speed away defensively,” Head Coach Paul Farrah spoke of the game. “But
Beatty's Football Shirt 2015our kids played hard and kept going. They’re never satisfied defensively, we have a mentality where we are just going to keep coming at you. And our offensive mentality is you’re going to stop us for a while, but sooner or later, someone is going to pop one.”

The biggest pop came in the fourth quarter when Quaterback Gary Whaley hit Justin Boudler for a 69 yard touchdown pass to bury any hope of a Minerva comeback. Despite the conditions, Whaley finished 10-of-11 passing for 130 yards and Boudler caught 5 passes for 96 yards. The touchdown was Boudler’s 10th of the season and he passed the 2,000 yard mark for receiving in his career. The score was also Whaley’s 20th passing touchdown of the season.

Mike Batdorff led the Leopards ground attack with 22 carries for 165 yards and scored on a 37 yard touchdown run in the opening quarter. Batdorff also caught 2 passes which allowed him to pass Boudler for the team record (at the time) for most receptions in a single season with 45.

Whaley also scored twice on the ground on runs of 3 and 2 yards. After the first touchdown, Whaley turned a bad snap into a two-point conversion pass to Batdorff to give Louisville an early 8-0 lead. That would be all the Leopards would need as the defense did the rest.

For Louisville it was their second shutout of the season and they completed their league schedule by allowing just 50 points in 7 games. The Lions finished the contest with just 127 yards of offense as the Leopards defense produced 4 sacks and 9 tackles for a loss. They did all of this without their leader Curtis Elsass who did not play do to injury.

“I thought Mike Clough had a great game. Matt Herbert and Mike Demos picked up the slack at linebacker with Elsass out in the middle,” Coach Farrah spoke of his players stepping up. “Dan Kolp and our freshman, Austin Powers, did a nice job filling in for Elsass.”

The Leopards finished 10-0, won their 4th straight NBC Title, made the playoffs for the 4th straight season, finished ranked #1 in the state, and defeated Minerva for the second straight year. There was no better way to end the season for LHS.

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Scoring Summary

Minerva 0-0-0-0–00

Louisville 14-6-0-7–27

1st Quarter

Louisville – Mike Batdorff 37 Yard Run (Mike Batdorff Pass from Gary Whaley), 8-0

Louisville – Gary Whaley 3 Yard Run (Kick Failed), 14-0

2ND Quarter

Louisville – Gary Whaley 2 Yard Run (Pass Failed), 20-0

3RD Quarter 

None

4TH Quarter

Louisville – Justin Boudler 69 Yard Pass from Gary Whaley (Brian Potts Kick), 27-0

Stats

Rushing: Louisville 36-199, Minerva 36-65

Passing: Louisville 10-12-130-0, Minerva 7-13-62-0

First Downs: Louisville 16, Minerva 8

Fumbles-Lost: Louisville 5-2, Minerva 3-0

Records: Louisville 10-0, 7-0, Minerva 3-7, 2-5

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