Click
here for this week's game notes in PDF.
Belton, TX – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor football team will play host to the tenth home playoff game in the program's history when the Cru welcomes Christopher Newport University to Tiger Field for a 12:00 PM kickoff this Saturday. The two teams are facing off in the First Round of the NCAA Division III National Championships. The Cru is 10-0 on the season, ranked fourth in the country by the American Football Coaches Association, and won the American Southwest Conference title with an 8-0 league mark. Christopher Newport was USA South Conference Co-Championships and earned the league's automatic bid to the postseason by virtue of a head-to-head win over fellow Co-Champion North Carolina Wesleyan. The Captains went 6-4 during the regular season, but turned things around after a 1-4 start and CNU will bring a five-game winning streak into Saturday's game. This will be the third overall meeting between the Cru and the Captains. UMHB faced CNU in the 2006 and 2007 season openers and each team has one win in the series. CNU took a 15-10 victory in the 2006 meeting Newport News, Virginia and the Cru claimed a 51-19 win in the 2007 meeting in Belton.
“These guys are really well-coached and they do a nice job,” Cru head coach
Pete Fredenburg said. “They will try to do some things that give them an advantage and it will be a challenge for us to find a way to stop them. We are going to have to be ready to play and prepare for a lot of different things.”
UMHB is in the NCAA Division III National Championships for the seventh straight season and the Cru is one of only two programs in the nation to have won at least one postseason game in each of the past six seasons. Mount Union is the other. UMHB is 14-8 all-time in the postseason. The Captains are making their seventh NCAA playoff appearance in the last ten years. CNU is 2-6 all-time in the NCAA Division III National Championships.
Saturday's game will be broadcast on KTEM-AM 1400. The audio broadcast will also be streamed live on the Internet at
www.myktem.com. The UMHB athletic department will also provide a live video stream and live statistics during Saturday's game. You can access those links through the UMHB athletic department web site at www.cruathletics.com.
