Championship Weekend

The regular season is now complete and we have two teams ready to battle it out for the NE-10 Championship. One team was supposed to be here and the other was not.

American International finished as the regular season champions with an 8-1 league record, 8-2 overall. Their lone league defeat was to New Haven in October by the score of 31-24. The Yellow Jackets were the favorite going into the season and lived up to the hype.

LIU Post was picked in the middle of the preseason poll but put together a solid season. They finished with a 7-2 league record and will play for their first NE-10 championship since they rejoined the league in 2013. The Pioneers dropped the regular season match up with AIC 27-24 but are looking for revenge this weekend.

The championship game will feature two teams that are very similar and have played each other a lot over the years. Even after Post left for the PSAC, both teams kept each other on the schedule for a number of years for their lone out of conference match up and those games were always competitive.

In the other four games of the weekend, number three Assumption will host number four New Haven. The Greyhounds won at New Haven 24-20 back in September. Number five St. Anselm will host number six Stonehill. The Skyhawks won in Manchester two weeks ago 23-16.

Number seven Merrimack will host number eight Bentley. The Warriors squeaked out a 28-25 victory at Bentley in the middle of October. And finally, number nine Southern Connecticut will host number ten seed Pace. The Owls defeated Pace in the third week of the season.

The NE-10 tweaked the format of the championship weekend as they gave the odd numbered finishers a home game this year. And ironically, all of the road teams in the regular season match ups won the games that are scheduled this weekend. As well as the St. Anselm/Stonehill game is in the same location as the regular season match up.

Kudos

You need to give a lot of credit to the Pace football team for their effort on Saturday. They did lose to AIC 58-19 but the Setters refused to roll over to the regular season champion of the league.

Pace scored the first points of the game as they took the opening kick-off deep into AIC territory before settling for a field goal. They never led again in the game but closed within one point on two separate occasions in the first half. Two late field goals in the first half saw them trail by just five heading into the locker room.

It has been a long time since Pace has won a football game. In fact, you need to go back 38 games to September 20, 2011 when the Setters defeated Stonehill 23-20 in overtime for their last win. It has been a long time for the program but they appear to be headed in the right direction.

Head coach Andy Rondeau has endured some lumps this year including four consecutive games without a point. But he is laying the foundation for this program to return to the success that they have had in the past. It is not an easy thing to build a football program into a perennial winner. Rondeau has helped other programs turn things around and is the right man for the job at Pace.

Give him a couple of years and Pace will be a competitive team in the NE-10. Expect sometime next year that they put together a 60 minute effort and upset someone to end the losing streak.

Kudos, Part Two

St. Anselm could have laid over and taken their lumps from New Haven. In fact, the Chargers were playing for a potential spot in the NE-10 Championship game. But the Hawks were not going to let a little four game losing streak ruin their attitude.

It started on the opening kick-off as St. Anselm won the toss but deferred to the second half. They tried an on-sides kick and then recovered it. Step one for building confidence.

The Hawks struggled the rest of the first half and trailed 21-7 at halftime. But they drove the field to open the second half to cut the lead to seven, 21-14. Step two for confidence.

They scored 21 points in the final quarter including 14 in the final 2:05 of the game. The winning touchdown came on a Hail Mary pass from Yianni Gavalas to Brandon Gomes from 48 yards out on the last play and St. Anselm finishes the regular season with a winning record for the first time since 2000.

St. Anselm was picked to finish ninth in the league this year and surprised a lot of people except for themselves. They knew that they could compete and if they believed in the game plans and themselves, it would be a successful season.

The program had a total of six wins from 2010-2013 so they erased four years of bad memories in one season.

Kudos, Part Three

A lot of seniors played their final home game over the weekend and they deserve a lot of credit for the time and effort that they have put in over the past several years. It is extremely tough to be an athlete in college and football is one of the tougher sports to balance school work and football requirements.

Many hours of film study are put in each week and then there is the practice time. Countless hours on the bus to road games and back home after a tough loss. It takes a special individual to balance the demands of football and the reason that they are in college, studying.

Congratulations to all of the players that will suit up one final time this weekend.

Preseason Polls

Now that we are done with the regular season, it is easy to look back and see who exceeded expectations and who did not live up the hype.

Here is the coaches' preseason poll:

1. AIC
2. New Haven
3. Stonehill
4. Assumption
5. Merrimack
6. LIU Post
7. Southern Connecticut
8. Bentley
9. St. Anselm
10. Pace

Here was my preseason poll for the NE-10:

1. AIC
2. Bentley
3. Stonehill
4. New Haven
5. Merrimack
6. LIU Post
7. Assumption
8. Southern Connecticut
9. St. Anselm
10. Pace

It appears that everyone missed on LIU Post. Both the coaches and I had them at sixth but they finished in second place. We also both missed on St. Anselm as well as they finished fifth and they were picked for ninth in both polls.

We both had Stonehill at third but they finished in sixth place. We also missed by a couple of spots on Merrimack as they were targeted for fifth but finished seventh.

I completely missed the boat on Bentley. I had them playing for a championship while the coaches had them exactly where they predicted in eighth. I also missed on Assumption as I had them at seventh while they finished in third. The coaches were better as they had them at fourth.

The good news is that we both picked AIC to finish first and Pace to finish in last place and both occurred. So we might both know what we are doing. The coaches beat me in exact finishes 4-3. The coaches had AIC, Assumption, Bentley and Pace in the right spot. I had AIC, New Haven and Pace.

Preseason polls are a tough thing to predict and forecast. This year, 10 skilled coaches were a little better than I in predicting the future. I will try harder next year.