Brandon Penn

GLENVILLE — It’s back to the Keystone State for Glenville State University and head football coach Mike Kellar.

Last Saturday, the G-men were trying to even their record at 1-1, but came up short in a 16-13 setback at Lock Haven.

Now, the Pioneers are set for a noon Saturday kickoff on Chryst Field at Biemesderfer Stadium against the Marauders of Millersville University, which is coming off a 1-10 campaign.

MU head man J.C. Morgan’s squad fell behind Frostburg State 21-0 a week ago Thursday early in the second quarter. Despite putting together a rally on their home field, the Marauders were saddled with a 42-34 defeat.

Signal-caller Ryan Zeltt passed for 261 yards and two touchdowns with a pair of interceptions en route to a 19 of 37 effort. MU had four running backs who had at least seven carries with JQ Brown (11-40) leading the way.

“I watched them play Frostburg a week ago,” said coach Kellar during his weekly show. “Frostburg jumped on them and then Millersville came back. I could look at that and say Frostburg had a couple chances to really put them away, which tells me Millersville is very resilient, and if I change a couple plays that Frostburg made Millersville wins that football game.

“They are coming off a loss. They are probably similar to where we are at. We both need this weekend bad. I tell our guys we got to control what we can control. We got a good group of kids. Just handling their emotions a little bit better is going to be the key.”

During last week’s loss, the Pioneers watched Lock Haven put the first 16 points on the board as the Pioneers couldn’t quite complete the comeback.

“A lot of people commented what a good game it was,” added coach Kellar. “It was probably a good game to watch. It’s a hard game to be on the wrong end of the score with. I thought our kids played hard. They battled. A week ago we talked about being a more physical football team, competing to the end. Some of the things we were trying to grow from Emory & Henry into Lock Haven and our kids did all that.

“This week here we have to keep our poise at times. When you are playing a team like Lock Haven at Lock Haven, a good atmosphere, a team that talks a lot and you talk to your kids about keeping their poise and being able to play through those situations.”

Glenville State had its chances a week ago to even its record, but the 413 total yards of offense only resulted in the 13 points.

“We’re capable. We do red zone everyday,” stressed coach Kellar. “I think we missed an extra point, a field goal, we had a fumble inside the 5, which may or may not have been a fumble depending on whose perspective you have of it. I tell our team all the time it’s your job to take care of the football so you don’t put officials in those situations and it may very well have been a fumble. All of that is on us. It shows that we’re capable of moving the ball.

“A very good defense, a stout front. They were very well coached schematically and yet you move the ball up and down the field, but you don’t come away with points when you need to. We start every practice with inside the 5, either two-point plays or goal line everyday. We have a red zone throw period and we have a red zone team period. It’s not like we need to work on it anymore. It’s just you got to execute when you get down there a little better.”

GSU senior quarterback Anthony Garrett connected on 23 of 35 attempts for 296 yards and two touchdowns versus the Bald Eagles. Jeremiah King (21-78) led the ground attack for the Pioneers, who got eight grabs for 136 yards and a score from Naseem Pacheco.

“We were able to kind of get the running game started a little bit and that enables you to play-action and make teams play certain coverages and those two were able to hookup pretty well and that was a big part of the ballgame,” added the coach.

“I thought the defense played really well. We talked about it. I think we gave up it was almost 200 yards of offense in like 12 plays. If you take that out they weren’t able to sustain drives. They had two big drives.”

In the early going for the GSU defense, Brandon Penn leads the team with 19 total tackles that includes 14 solo stops. Sean Scott, Braden Boggs, Anthony Bachinski and Jaiden McLendon Parker have made 11 tackles apiece. Tank Gant and Donovan Williams (1.5) are the only Pioneers with more than one tackle for loss.

“We got to show up and tackle,” coach Kellar added. “It’s very similar to a week ago. We’re going to have to stop the run, be able to get them in obvious pass situations, rush the passer and play our coverages.

“It’s really about us just executing our ball plays and playing within ourselves. We got to be a physical football team. We got to be a high level of execution football team and we got to control our emotions.”

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com