SAVANNAH, Tenn. -- When the Carroll College football team came to play in the 2007 NAIA national championship game affectionately known as the "Rumble on the River," they didn't know they would actually be playing on a river.

It rained here every day since their arrival on Wednesday and by Saturday afternoon, before the game had even begun, a pool had formed in the center of the field.

Rain drenched both teams' sidelines and the cement track that encircled the field at Jim Carroll Stadium was a moat.

Both the champion Saints and their opponents, the University of Sioux Falls, were soaked before the game took place.

By the end, the Saints shining white uniforms were gray and bits of mud speckled their faces. Even those who weren't able to get in the game and slide on the field took their shot at the end, celebrating the 17-9 win.

By that time, the natural Slip 'n Slide was a lot of fun, but during the game it was a hassle.

"We like to get matchups through a lot of shifting and motioning, we like to use a lot of different misdirection that wasn't very effective today," said Sioux Falls head coach, Kalen DeBoer. "Give Carroll credit, they had the type of offense. The different misdirections they had were a little more power."

It didn't take long for the Saints to decide they would be running the ball. On just the third play of their first drive, senior quarterback John Barnett scrambled out of the pocket and, while looking to pass downfield, let the ball slip from his hand. Sioux Falls' Jeremy Barnes recovered the football on Carroll's own 29-yard line.

"The footing was the least of my worries," Barnett said about the conditions. "Getting the snap was probably the first and most crucial thing, and as you can see, a lot of balls hit the ground. I didn't have to do much at quarterback, just hand the ball off."

Barnett's fumble didn't amount to much. Three plays later, junior linebacker Owen Koeppen smacked Sioux Falls' running back, Erik Cimpl, forcing a fumble. Carroll's senior safety Cody Zimmerman recovered the ball.

There would be a total of nine fumbles, five of them for turnovers. Carroll picked up two while the Cougars jumped on three.

One player that certainly benefited from the conditions was Saints sophomore running back Gabe Le. The offensive player of the game slogged his way to 116 yards on 34 carries and bounced off the Cougars' defense like a pinball.

With a dominating offensive line, coupled with junior tight end Marshall McEwen's best blocking performance of his career, Le made a 20-yard dash for his first touchdown of the game. At the 7:26 mark in the third quarter, it gave the Saints a 10-6 lead, all they would have needed to win the game.

On the next Carroll drive, however, Le leaped over a tackle at the line for a short gain, then found a huge hole to run through for a first down, and finished the nine-play, 44-yard drive with a two-yard hop into the end zone untouched.

"Their running game, just, I guess the field conditions -- it's slippery," said Cougars senior linebacker Rob Tiff, trying to explain how difficult it was. "(Le) broke tackles just from bouncing off slippery people."

As for the Cougars' offense, which relied heavily on senior quarterback and NAIA player of the year, Chad Cavender, for its offense, the precipitation brought nasty results.

Averaging nearly 270 yards per game and connecting on roughly 67 percent of his passes throughout the season, Cavender completed just 12-of-30 passes for 116 yards.

He also is considered a threat on the ground, but even when the Cougars spread the defense by emptying the backfield on fourth down, Cavender was brought down by Koeppen short of the first down. The play, which came at the beginning of the fourth quarter, proved the Saints had a much better hold on the player than previous teams.

The Cougars' running game would pick up 70 yards, mainly thanks to the 64-yard performance by running back Erik Cimpl. At one point, he exploded for a 26-yard gain.

"I blitzed once and we got burned by it and I didn't come back to it," Van Diest said. "I didn't come back and blitz, I'm scared."

Instead, the Saints stuck with a three-man rush and substituted in five different players on the defensive line, holding Cavender to just 14 yards rushing.

"I had a lot of three-man rushes," Van Diest said. "We just didn't let (Cavender) get out of the pocket."