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GLENVILLE -- Opportunity is knocking once again for the Pioneers of first-year head coach Jake Casteel as Glenville State will seek its first Mountain East Conference victory come 1:30 p.m. Saturday on homecoming against West Liberty inside Morris Stadium.
The Hilltoppers (6-1, 4-0) of first-year head coach Chad Salisbury, picked next to last in the preseason poll, rest atop the MEC and have won six straight.
GSU’s 21 second-half points weren’t quit enough to stop a four-game skid last Saturday in a 34-31 setback at Concord.
A year ago, the Pioneers (1-6, 0-4) held a 15-6 halftime lead and left WLU with a 32-28 victory.
“Really proud of our team. The fight they showed throughout the whole game,” Casteel said on his weekly GoMart coaches show of the effort in Athens.
“I told them that the fight, the sideline, the energy was as good as I had felt in a little while. Hopefully, we can build off that, but you know we just got to find a way to finish some of these games.”
Last week, the Hilltoppers put up 21 points in the first quarter thanks to a Kohl Meisman 45-yard touchdown pass to Dominic Diaz-Ellis along with scoring bursts of 98 and 29 yards from Hunter Patterson en route to a 41-21 triumph against West Virginia Wesleyan.
The 6-foot-6 Meisman found Diaz-Ellis for a second touchdown and attempted just 14 passes, completing 10 for 94 yards.
Patterson, whose 1,353 ground yards trails only the 1,387 stripes of Davenport’s Cephus Harris in all of Division II, put the icing on the cake with a 50-yard touchdown run. The former Oak Glen Golden Bear, who also leads WLU in receiving (28-315-5), found the end zone thrice and went for 359 yards on 26 carries.
“He’s a really, really good player and he’s track fast, but he’s football fast,” Casteel said of Patterson. “He’s really tough running in between the tackles.”
Conversely, the Pioneers allowed 6 yards a carry to the Mountain Lions (41-247) and amassed 22 stripes on 17 rushes as signal-caller JD Sherrod completed 35 of 53 for 362 yards and three touchdowns.
Ex-Parkersburg South Patriot Triston Walker had a breakout game at tight end for the Pioneers with five grabs for 99 yards and joined Kyree Bunny and Kashez Gedeon with TD catches.
“Shout out to Triston Walker, who really hadn’t played all year, mostly on special teams, and you know we’re a little banged up in the tight end room,” Casteel said.
“We moved him to tight end and he plays really, really well and makes a huge difference in the game for us. Blocking, catching the football, run after the catch, so I’m really proud of him.”
Former Pioneer assistant coach and current WLU defensive coordinator Anthony Kellar’s stop corps are allowing 27.6 points a game, which ranks third in the MEC.
“Anthony Kellar does a good job mixing up the coverage looks. They got some pressure packages,” Casteel added.
“They get in some three, some odd front stuff, four down, some three high safety looks, so they mix up the look they’re giving the quarterback.”
The Pioneers had to settle for three Brody Layman field goals last week, which included a 41-yarder.
GSU, which got 10 stops by Da’jon Barnes and nine by Jacob Clark versus the Mountain Lions, also had sacks by Maddox Gillespie and David Chukwuemeka, but are allowing an MEC worst 37.1 points per game along with W.Va. State.
“Starting on defense, number one is to control Hunter Patterson,” Casteel said of the key. “I don’t know if you completely stop him, but you have got to control him and make him earn everything, and make him feel us when he does touch the football.
“If we can do that, eliminate some of the run game for them and get them in some passing situations, that’s going to be huge for our defense. We’ve got to run the football to win games and we got to just like we have to stop it to win games on defense. I think those are the two major keys.”
Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com