Game Notes
BELTON, Texas – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor football team will get its first opportunity to play games in back-to-back weeks in more than 14 months as the Cru travels to Marshall to take on East Texas Baptist University this Saturday. UMHB will face the Tigers in a 1 pm kickoff at Ornelas Stadium on the ETBU campus.
The game was setting up to be a potential American Southwest Conference East Division Championship Game before ETBU's unexpected 23-17 loss to Louisiana College last Saturday. UMHB tuned up for this week's contest by rolling to a 52-7 win over Southwestern University last Saturday in Belton. The Cru offense showed tremendous improvement, rolling up 255 rushing yards and 465 yards of total offense against the Pirates. UMHB's defense limited Southwestern to just 20 yards on the ground and 146 yards of total offense. The Cru is now 2-0 overall and in ASC play on the spring while the Tigers dropped to 2-1 overall and in the conference with last Saturday's loss. UMHB can put itself in the driver's seat for a berth in the ASC Championship Game with a win over ETBU, while the Tigers need a win in their regular season finale to keep championship game hopes alive. That makes this a dangerous game for the Cru, something the coaching staff wants to make sure the players understand.
"We always know we are going to get every opponents' best shot," UMHB Head Coach
Pete Fredenburg said. "ETBU is closing out their regular season with this game and we know they see it as a must win. Our players have to be up for that challenge. ETBU has great size and really talented skill players and it is going to take our best effort on Saturday because it is going to be a test for our program."
UMHB leads the all-time series between the two teams 19-1 and has won the last 16 meetings with ETBU. The Tigers only win over UMHB came in a 28-21 overtime victory in the 2003 meeting at Tiger Field in Belton. That loss kept the Cru out of the playoffs for the only time since the 2000 season. UMHB and ETBU have played in two of the four overtime games in Cru football history.
Saturday's game will also be broadcast live on Fox Sports Radio (93.9 FM/1330 AM) and through the station's web site with the pre-game show starting at 12:30 PM. UMHB will provide free live video streaming and ETBU will provide live statistics for the game with access to all of the live coverage also available on the UMHB athletic department website at
www.cruathletics.com.
