Glenville State set for home opener against Lock Haven | News, Sports, Jobs

GLENVILLE — Glenville State University head coach Mike Kellar’s Pioneers will look for a better afternoon at 1 p.m. Saturday when Lock Haven invades Morris Stadium for the Bald Eagles’ season opener.

The G-men (0-1) opened last weekend at Emory & Henry, which had its way in a 38-7 victory.

“Obviously disappointed”, Coach Kellar admitted, “I thought Emory & Henry was a good football team going into it, an experienced team. I think we helped them out. We didn’t play our best game. We didn’t play well at all. I don’t know if it was the nerves from the first game or the nerves, but I obviously wasn’t happy with how our team performed.”

“Helping them win is not something we want to do and it’s not something we’ve really done in the past. This is one of those days. We’ve had a few games like this in my tenure and two is too many. Hopefully we don’t have many more.”

Despite a bad day from signal-caller Anthony Garrett, who was intercepted four times, coach Kellar and his team are far from panic mode.

“If it was something we did every day in training or if it was something we’ve done a lot over the last couple of years, it would worry me,” “It obviously worries me, but in the same vein, we’re running a play that we run all the time. We run a corner route and if the ball is two feet on that side, it’s a touchdown. The ball is two feet inside and the kid goes up and makes an interception.”

“The RPO where the defensive end jumps and catches the ball (returns it for a touchdown), I’m willing to bet that was a one-in-a-million play on their part. It’s almost like those two we live with. The other two are just bad decisions. They’re trying to scramble and make a play. I think the scoreboard and being down, the first game, the expectations, hopefully that’s something we can learn from.”

The Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference program led by Dan Mulrooney, Lock Haven’s head coach for the past three years, is coming off a 5-6 season. The last time the Bald Eagles had a five-win campaign was in 1982.

Jackson Ostrowsky, who is a graduate transfer from Rhode Island, will be the engine of Lock Haven’s offense and has a plethora of weapons both in the backfield and at receiver.

“We don’t have much information on them. They haven’t played this year yet,” Coach Kellar said of Lock Haven, which was selected fifth in the PSAC East preseason poll — the Bald Eagles’ highest selection in the polls in two decades. “Everything we have on them is from last season. Very, very well-coached team. I’ve been in the PSAC for 10 years. We’ve played Lock Haven almost every year.

“They weren’t a program that played with a lot of confidence. They weren’t really a winning program. This coach came in, he’s in his third year, and he’s done a really good job of changing their mindset. Offensively, some of the schemes they run, some of the RPO stuff they do, some of the leverage throws they take advantage of, the West Coast throwing game, the screens and the draws. They’re very, very good.”

While they don’t have much in common with the Bald Eagles, Kellar added, “They have really good skills all around.

“Defensively, I think they’re very well coached and they run a very good scheme.”

Glenville State, which trailed 31-0 late in the third quarter when Garrett connected with Elijah Palmer on a 10-yard touchdown pass, held a 16-14 advantage in first downs and allowed 271 yards while gaining 248.

“The truth is we didn’t give them many chances to play.” Coach Kellar said of his defense, which received 2.5 sacks from Jamair Diaz.

“We put them in trouble a lot of times with bad field position and turnovers. At the end of the day, they made three of three shots in the red zone and we made one of three shots in the red zone, and we had five turnovers.”

The Pioneers, who rushed 23 times for 74 yards with Mark Rucker’s 42 rushing yards on eight sacks leading the way, had nine different players catch a pass.

“Our priority will be not to lose the ball, not to have defensive misalignments and not to give up big plays.” Kellar stressed: “Players are going to make plays. What we can’t do is give them plays and make them earn what they get. We were a veteran team and some of our veterans made mistakes in a game.”

“They have to play cleaner. I have to coach better. I would start there. I don’t know if I put us in the best situations and any time you’re behind and you’re chasing the scoreboard, you can put it off until later. If we play clean, we’re a good football team. We were making mistakes and they weren’t.”

Contact Jay Bennett at [email protected]

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