Sports

Football team still prepared in spite of loss

Regardless of playoff probability, the team will stay the course

By Erinne Magee

Posted on Nov. 06, 2003, at 12:00 a.m.

It’s hard to bounce back after the heartbreaking 24-21 overtime loss like the one the University of Maine football team endured this past Saturday at Delaware.

“Certainly the fact that it was such a tough loss makes it, on paper, seem a little more difficult,” Coach Jack Cosgrove said. “But we’ve always been able to go on to the next game and we have to. It’s what football requires.”

At this point, Maine is 5-4, and with three games left on the season, making the postseason is a long shot.

In the past few seasons, the NCAA has taken three teams from the Atlantic-10 conference, and Cosgrove believes they’ll do the same again this year.

“We’ve just kind of pushed ourselves back away from [the postseason] now,” said Cosgrove. “Had we won Saturday and I was sitting here 6-3, I’d say that we were on a march to go and win out and go to the playoffs. That’s not the case, at least right now, on paper.”

Regardless, the team must play on.

“The season is not over even though we’re probably not going to the playoffs,” said senior co-captain Dennis Dottin-Carter. “We still have three more games to play and we can’t let up.”

Dottin-Carter said it’s important, at this point in the season, for the upperclassman on the team to come out and lead by example, and continue to practice hard.

“We have to tell [the younger guys] to try and not think about next season,” he said. “They have to think about the games we have left.”

This season’s senior class has a unique opportunity. If the team wins the three final games that remain on its schedule, the 10 seniors will go out as the winningest class in Maine football history. Cosgrove said you have to look back to the ’86-’89 teams to find a group of seniors that had as much success over a four-year period.

Although that is a nice accomplishment, Dottin-Carter said it doesn’t take the place of trip to the postseason.

“You play this game to win championships,” he said.

Cosgrove said the team must continue to go week to week and hopefully keep piling on the wins.

This week, the Black Bears will travel to Baltimore, MD for a non-league game to take on the Morgan State Bears.

This will be the first meeting between the two teams, and the first time Maine has played another team with “Bears” in its nickname since 1989.

Morgan State splits its passing game between two talented quarterbacks: freshman Bradshaw Littlejohn and senior LeJominick Washington. The two have combined for almost 1,800 yards in the air, and 14 touchdowns. Littlejohn has also run the ball over 600 yards.

The Bears’ defense is led by Albert Gamble who has 90 tackles on the season.

“Their defense has a lot of speed and they are going to come out ready to play,” said Dottin-Carter.

The game is set for a 1 p.m. kickoff.

“Each and every week you have a chance to win,” said Cosgrove. “[Knowing that] kind of knocks the feeling that we have right now.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2003, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.