SACKVILLE, N.B. – The Mount Allison Mounties will be looking for a quicker start Saturday when they host the Saint Mary’s Huskies in AUS Football action at MacAulay Field.
Game time is 2 p.m.
Last Friday in Halifax, the Huskies scored two first quarter touchdowns en route to a 43-7 win over the Mounties, who have fallen into last place in the four-team conference with three games to play.
“We need to start faster. We played a little better once we settled down, but it was the start that did us in,” Mounties’ coach Kelly Jeffrey said Thursday. “We have to come out with a better mentality and be ready to start the game in a better way and not fall behind in the first quarter.”
The Huskies reeled of 36 unanswered points through three quarters before Mount Allison got on the board with a two-yard touchdown run by rookie running back Jordan Botel.
Jeffrey said his team has been working hard in practice all week to address the poor starts. He said his players have been practising at an increased tempo and is excited about where it’s heading going into the weekend.
“We spent a lot of time addressing it and the mentality of it. We’ve done some things in practice with tempo at the first of practice so we can get into the mental state that we’re ready to go,” Jeffrey said.
Mount Allison is in Antigonish next Saturday to face the St. F.X. X-Men before concluding the regular season on Oct. 27 at home against the conference-leading Acadia Axemen.
The road to the playoffs was made more difficult earlier this week when a win by the Concordia Stingers over St. F.X. in September was overturned. The Stingers had an ineligible player.
“Every week is big and it’s important for us to win every game we play from here on out. We don’t control what happens with other teams, we can only control what happens with our teams. We need to focus on that,” he said.
Next week’s game in Antigonish could be big since each team has won one game in head-to-head matches. It could come down to the winner of that game to determine who gets the final playoff spot.
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