Sports

Football ready for big game

Maine faces rival Northeastern Saturday

By Erinne Magee

Posted on Oct. 16, 2003, at 12:00 a.m.

With five weeks left in the regular season, the University of Maine football team knows that in order to have a shot at the conference title they must keep their losses to a minimum.

This week, the team will travel down the interstate to meet up with the Northeastern University Huskies in Boston, Mass.

“It will be intense because it’s really a must-win for both teams,” said tailback Marcus Williams. “Whoever loses is probably out of the race for the conference title.”

Northeastern, who lost to Hofstra last Saturday 24-14, is coming off a three-game losing streak, after winning four in a row to kick off the season.

Despite the losses, coach Jack Cosgrove knows that Northeastern is a hungry football team and will come ready to play.

The Huskies have been on the road for the past three weeks, and will return to Parsons Field this week for Homecoming.

Maine, on the other hand, will play its first game in two weeks after having a bye week this past Saturday.

“Bye weeks are always great because it gives the team time to rest up and get our players that are banged up in shape,” defensive back Joan Quezada said. “It’s also great because it gives us an edge on our opponent.”

Preparing for Northeastern may just be a little easier on the defense because the Huskies run an offense similar to Maine’s.

“They are similar to us in that they are real physical on offense,” said Cosgrove. “We’re fortunate that the defense gets to work against that [offense] on a regular basis in practice.”

Northeastern’s offense is directed by quarterback Shawn Brady who has thrown for more than 1,110 yards on the season. Pete Harris and Anthony Riley have combined for nearly 900 yards in the first seven games and top the Huskies’ running game.

“Once we stop the run we make them one-dimensional,” said Fredy Lazo who leads Maine’s defense with 39 tackles. “Once we do that we can have fun and play the pass.”

The Bears also know they must be prepared for what Northeastern’s passing game has to offer.

“We have got to be prepared for their receivers who are very talented and very fast,” Quezada said. He also notes that the Huskies are a team that wants to dominate the time of possession, so Maine’s defense will have to be ready to perform well.

Last season, Northeastern wasn’t on the Bears’ schedule, but the two teams shared the Atlantic-10 Conference Championship.

Cosgrove said he’s glad the team gets to play the Huskies this season because its business they didn’t get to take care of last year.

“It’s a rivalry in the sense that a lot of the players on their roster are players we look to recruit, and players on our roster that they tried to recruit,” he said.

Cosgrove was 2-2 back in his playing career against the Huskies.

This weekend, the Maine v. Northeastern match-up is scheduled as the Atlantic-10 Game of the Week, and will be televised on Fox Sports New England at 12:30 p.m.

Maine returns home on Oct. 25 for another conference contest with James Madison University.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2003, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.