Click
here for this week's game notes in PDF.
Belton, TX – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor football team has been road warriors this season, playing six of its first nine games on the road. That stretch comes to an end this Saturday as the 2
nd-ranked Cru travels to Marshall to face East Texas Baptist University in the final road contest of the regular season. UMHB will take on the Tigers in a 1:00 PM kickoff at Ornelas Stadium on the ETBU campus. The Cru will bring an 8-0 overall record and a 5-0 mark into the game, but what is more important is what UMHB can take out of Marshall with a win. A Cru victory would clinch at least a share of the American Southwest Conference Championship and guarantee UMHB the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III National Championships. It would also keep the quest for a third consecutive undefeated regular season and likely #1 seed in the postseason alive. The Tigers are 3-5 overall and 2-3 in ASC play on the year. The last time UMHB went to Marshall with a chance to clinch the ASC title ETBU took the Cru to overtime. Quincy Daniels' 11-yard TD run in the extra session allowed UMHB to escape with a 34-28 victory in that game and the Cru is expecting to get the Tigers best shot again this weekend.
“We know that we go into every game with a bull's-eye on our backs and we get everybody's best shot each week,” Cru head coach
Pete Fredenburg said. “That's the position you want to be in, though. And I think it is a real credit to our coaches and players that we prepare for that each week. They do a good job of staying focused on the task at hand and working to get better each week.”
UMHB leads the all-time series with ETBU 11-1. The Tigers only victory in the series was a 28-21 overtime win in 2003 that kept the Cru out of the postseason for the only time in the last 11 seasons.
Cru linebacker
Javicz Jones will become the ASC's career leader in tackles with his first tackle on Saturday. He tied the mark of 403 tackles held by Hardin-Simmons linebacker Jared Sanderson in UMHB's 68-6 victory over Howard Payne last Saturday and became the first player in Cru history to go over 400 career tackles in the process.
Saturday's game will be broadcast locally on KTEM 1400 AM radio. Jimmy Christopher and George Haffner will call the action with the pre-game starting at 12:30 PM. The UMHB athletic department will also offer free live video streaming through the department's web site at
www.cruathletics.com.
