The football team is beginning the season ranked fifth in the NJAC, a testament to their mediocre record of 5-5 in the 2010 season.
The team, however, is looking to overcome that ranking, and prove that they’re better than what the coaches’ poll projected. The team has been training hard in the offseason and added a new lifting program to their regimen to try and boost their in-game results.
“Last winter and spring we completed a new and very effective lifting program,” junior defensive back Kevin Reavey said. “We also had a great spring season and guys seemed to carry that work ethic into the summer. We look to be a much stronger and faster unit than last year’s team.”
In addition to this, the players are trying to treat every time on the field, be it a scrimmage or a championship game, as an important event for the team. The team has used their offseason practicing and conditioning to help gear them up for their opening-week matchup against seventh-ranked NJAC rival William Paterson University.
“We just finished up a very intense preseason camp that included a game scrimmage against Albright, where we looked sharp,” Reavey said. “The next two weeks we’ll spend a lot of time watching Paterson film.”
The team is returning many veteran players, including quarterback Jay Donoghue, who will be looking to add to his 2010 campaign in which he passed for 547 yards and four touchdowns while also rushing for two scores.
With many players returning and the improvements made in the offseason, the team is setting the bar high and expecting to do much better than last season.
“We have high expectations coming into the 2011 season,” Reavey said. “We have a lot of experience and leadership returning, with strong senior and junior classes. We look to continue the positive momentum we carried through the second half of last season (into this season).”
