This past weekend the NMU men’s football team traveled to Illinois to face off against Quincy University. The ‘Cats were unable to get the win and despite being 0-4, the Wildcats are ready for the remainder of the season as the rest of their games will be a set of tough conference teams starting with No.1 Ferris State this weekend.
“Just to be able to go into a conference right now and to see that actually, a lot of our goals are all on the table still,” said Head Coach Shane Richardson. “What we want to do is we want to keep improving every week, we want to continue to show competitive excellence every week.”
The Wildcats were down 14-3 just before half when transfer quarterback Mariano Valenti ran the ball in for a 1-yard touchdown and made the game 14-10 going into the locker room. Midway through the third quarter, NMU was able to get one point behind Qunicy after sophomore kicker Michael Karlen kicked a 20-yard field goal, making the score 13-14. Unfortunately, NMU was unable to capitalize and wound up dropping the contest 45-27 after the Eagles scored 17 points in the fourth quarter. This is the second time this season NMU has allowed a team to score 17 in the fourth quarter, losing the other game to the Lake Erie Storm.
“I think we just found out it’s a tough task right now. This is where we’re at, and we got to just continue to find ways where we can be positive and to try to find little ways that we can build and grow,” Richardson said. “And I think over time, it’s going to come together.”
Even though the ‘Cats have yet to win a game, their spirit is still high as they kick off the GLIAC conference games this weekend. They are trying to put the losses behind them and focus on the next seven weeks of the season. The coaches are rallying the players to make sure they still give the rest of the season their all, and are not giving up halfway through the season.
“I think we are being proactive to make sure that that doesn’t happen. We want to make sure that our culture stays intact, and we want to make sure that the nucleus of the players that we want to be here and to build this thing with, we want to make sure that they stay on board,” Richardson said. “We’re trying to be proactive as coaches to address some of those things and make sure that we are building guys up, just as much as we’re demanding excellence out of them.”
A few players that stood out in this game were quarterback Valenti, throwing the ball 368 yards and with three total touchdowns, and junior wide receiver Michael Love who had four receptions for 81 yards for the ‘Cats. This weekend the team will be traveling to Big Rapids, MI as they face off against the No.1 ranked Ferris State. Kickoff for the game is on Saturday, Sept. 30 at 2 p.m.
