Three losses in a row! We knew that we had to do better as a team and get on the winning track. We were set to take a long trip to Washington DC to take on the Gallaudet University Bison. Gallaudet started the season with a couple of impressive wins against Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology and Greensboro College. This week 5 matchup also marked the start of conference play for us. The game was way more important than our first four games because winning this game would make us 1-0 in the Eastern Collegiate Football Conference (ECFC). After all, we are the defending champions of the ECFC. We also know that winning the conference would lead to a playoff berth in the NCAA Division III playoffs. Winning the conference and making the playoffs are two of our biggest goals for the season.
In our players meeting to start the week, the captains of the team gave powerful and emphatic speeches about our goals for the rest of the season and what we must do to accomplish them. We then had really good practices from Monday to Wednesday. Sadly, our Thursday practice was not as great, and we knew we had to improve to beat Gallaudet.
Saturday came and we were ready to face off against our conference foe. We came out firing on all cylinders and took a 10-0 lead off a Mason Dill field goal and Mike Bethune Jr. rushing touchdown. Gallaudet quarterback Timel Benton then scored a 58-yard rushing touchdown. Errol Breaux rushed for a touchdown to give us a 17-7 lead. Benton then cut the deficit to 3 points with his second touchdown of the game. After the halftime break, Benton rushed for a 38-yard touchdown to give Gallaudet the lead. We recaptured the lead in the tight matchup off another Errol Breaux score. We unfortunately missed the extra point, so we only took a 23-21 lead. Mikka Harvey then scored a 25-yard touchdown and gave Gallaudet the lead again. Both teams quickly swapped touchdowns to start the fourth quarter. We missed another extra point before Gallaudet scored another touchdown and took a 42-29 lead. Bethune Jr. scored his third touchdown of the day, and we missed a third PAT to make it a 42-35 final score. Bethune had an amazing day with 125 rushing yards and 3 touchdowns. It was awesome to see him play at such a high level as he is an extremely hard worker and great leader on our team.
The game was a very close loss that really hurt because it was a conference game. This makes it much more difficult to defend our conference title. We have our work cut out for us. We have to win next week against Castleton University to keep our conference title hopes alive.
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