CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - The thrill ride that has been the University of Northern Iowa's 2005 football season screeched to a halt here Friday night in the NCAA Division I-AA national championship game.

Fifth-ranked Appalachian State finally pulled the plug on a Panther team that kept its fans on the edge of their seats for the better part of seven weeks as they won their last seven games to reach the biggest show in I-AA.

A defense that shut UNI down on 283 net yards made big plays at key times to end the Panthers' seven-game winning streak and send them back to Cedar Falls early this morning without the trophy they came to Chattanooga to win.

The biggest of those plays came courtesy of a pair of Appalachian State all-American defensive ends. Marques Murrell knocked the ball out of UNI quarterback Eric Sanders' hands with 9 minutes, 14 seconds to play and Jason Hunter returned it 15 yards for the deciding touchdown.

The largest crowd to see a I-AA final since 1996 and the biggest in the nine years the game has been held at Finley Stadium, 20,236, witnessed a game of two halves that saw UNI take advantage of three first-half turnovers to build a 16-7 lead before the fifth-ranked Mountaineers rallied behind senior quarterback Richie Williams and defensive demons Hunter and Murrell.

"You knew it was going to be a close football game," said head coach Mark Farley. "I thought we had the football team to go four quarters with them and win it in the fourth.

"We just came up a little short."

It was a disappointed group of Panthers who reluctantly departed Chattanooga early this morning, but a group that also knows what it accomplished during a season in which it was once just 4-3.

"Going from 1-2 in the Gateway at the beginning of the year to this amazing run we've just had, it was definitely a successful (run), and it was fun," said senior Kevin Stensrud. "It was an emotional ride, and that's why it hurts tonight.

"The last three playoff games have been emotional games that have come down to the fourth quarter. We thought we (could) do the same thing tonight, but we didn't get it done."