Maryville, Mo., is covered with hunter green and Bearcat paws. The town of just less than 12,000 is fiercely proud of its Northwest Missouri State Bearcats.

The same hunter green can be found just 45 miles down Interstate-229 in St. Joseph, the home of Northwest’s fiercest rivals, Missouri Western State. This week, like in every week leading up to a Northwest Missouri-Missouri Western game, the game is the talk of the town. Northwest fans bicker with Western fans and the MWSU campus comes to life in anticipation of the matchup.

It’ll be the fifth meeting in three seasons for the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletic Association rivals. And this year, it’s a de facto conference championship.

While St. Joseph is a city divided on the rivalry, Maryville knows no such bipartisanship. In a town of 11,972, 10,805 people packed Bearcat Stadium in 2010.

“I doubt in Maryville you can survive wearing black and gold or having a Griffon sticker on because you’ll get your window broken probably,” Missouri Western head coach Jerry Partridge said.

The heart of the rivalry is the schools’ proximity to each other. Western senior running back Michael Hill grew up in St. Joseph and remembers shuttling back and forth to Maryville to watch the game each year.

“It’s always been blown up,” Hill said.

But if location is the heart of the rivalry, then something more fundamental defines its origins. Northwest Missouri State fans don’t believe Missouri Western should exist. Until 1969, Northwest was the only full college in the area.

“I think there were a lot of folks, especially Northwest people that thought surely it was a waste of money, there was no way that two state universities should be built that close together,” Partridge said.

It was then-Gov. Warren Hearnes’ delivery on a campaign promise to add a four-year college to the region that resulted in Missouri Western’s expansion to a four-year college. Just 19 years later, then-Gov. John Ashcroft’s administration planned to close Northwest Missouri.

The plan fell through, and the rivalry has grown since. Western held an 8-7 series lead in the first 15 years, but then the game started to take on national significance as Northwest was ranked in the Top 10 nationally each time the schools met from 1996-2000.

Partridge is MWSU’s all-time wins leader, but he’s never won a conference title. Northwest’s always been in the way, winning 14 of the teams’ 17 matchups.

“That certainly bothers me, no doubt,” Partridge said.

The rivalry also plays out on the recruiting trail where the two schools compete for the best local talent. The recruitment battle tends to play out fairly evenly according to Northwest Missouri’s recruiting coordinator and wide receivers coach Joel Osborn.

Players usually pick the program they feel is a more natural fit for their game and careers, but the recruiting job is easier when coaches can point to the scoreboard.

“It does give you bragging rights I guess,” Partridge said. “Any time you beat somebody and you recruit someone against them you say, ‘Hey look, we beat them.’”

But MWSU’s only been able to say that once since 2003. Western won its first game in eight years against Northwest Missouri last season, and it took a 58-yard field goal from now-St. Louis Ram Greg Zuerlein to pull off the upset of the No. 3 Bearcats.

Northwest Missouri got its revenge, though, in the first round of the NCAA Division-II playoffs. Western hosted and jumped out to a 16-0 lead in front of 8,420. The home team opened up another sizable lead of 29-14 midway through the third quarter before Northwest closed the gap to 29-27 at the end of the period.

Western appeared to regain momentum when Northwest missed a 26-yard field goal with 8:07 remaining in the fourth quarter. The Griffons took over on their own 20, but quarterback Travis Partridge fumbled.

“It might’ve barely hit the ground, but it started rolling, they pushed Travis out of the way and got it,” Hill said. “Going through it, once the fumble happened it was pretty much like slow-motion. … You couldn’t even run towards them because they didn’t have much distance to go to get in the end zone. It’s seriously like it happened yesterday.”

Northwest took a 35-27 lead and held on for the win.

The loss left its mark on Hill, but he tries to forget it and focus on the next round in the rivalry. A win for Western would bring a conference title to St. Joseph for the first time ever.

And for all the storylines arcing over the game itself, that’s all that matters.

“It would mean we’re conference champs. That’s what it means right now,” Partridge said. “And it means the work you put in this week has been worthwhile because you got a win.”

Published on November 6, 2012 at 2:23 am

Contact Jacob: jmklinge@syr.edu | @Jacob_Klinger_