The Lions of Mount St. Joseph are heading to Richmond, Indiana this saturday to take on the Quakers of Earlham College. After a rocky start to the season the Lions are flying high again after defeating Rose-Hulman last Saturday to win their third straight game and defeating an excellent opponent. "That is a great football team, " said head coach Rod Huber. "Every year they are competing for a conference championship. Like I said, they are a well coached and well disciplined team. I think the fact we got up on them early was one of our keepers of the seven keys we laid out last week. That first drive of the game when they deferred the opening coin flip and we were able to go down the field and score, that was huge."
The offense has experienced a renaissance of sorts starting with freshman quarterback Chaiten Tomlin (Western Brown - Mt. Orab, OH) who garnered HCAC Offensive Player of the Week. "Chaiten is getting better every week and that is all we ask. Improve a little more every day and he has done that," said offensive coordinator Tom Grippa. "The offense as a whole has improved. It's like they heard the Call of Ktulu. We need to keep working at it and this week is no different. We need to go to Earlham and start fast."
Defensively, the Lions were once again stout against the run. "A big key for us is to take away the ground game and we have had success doing that," said defensive coordinator Rick Thompson. "This week is no different. Earlham has some guys that can really hurt us if we do not play fundamentally sound defense. We cannot afford to be out of position or we're going to stay awake all night trying to contain them."
Kickoff is scheduled for 2:30 due to Earlham's Homecoming ceremonies at Darrell Beane Stadium. The game will be simulcast at goearlham.com
