The defending champions of the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference and Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association will meet when Lakeland University hosts Albion (Mich.) College for its football home opener Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. at John Taylor Memorial Field.
A pair of teams that qualified for the NCAA Division III playoffs a year ago will headline the MIAA-NACC Challenge event, in its fifth year matching teams from the respective conferences for a weekend of non-conference games in September. Lakeland and Albion also will meet for the second straight year, after the Britons posted a 47-21 victory a year ago in Michigan.
The Muskies enter this year's meeting with a 1-0 record and were idle last week but opened their season two weeks ago with a 27-24 win at Carroll.
Dezmon Eddie (
Fr.-Alexandria, La.) scored the go-ahead touchdown from seven yards out with 1:07 to play, capping an 87-yard drive in the final minutes, and the Pioneers missed a field goal attempt to tie in the final seconds.
Albion enters with a 0-2 record and is coming off a 50-13 loss to UW-Stevens Point. The Britons gained 30 first downs and 434 yards of offense but were unable to finish drives and could not stop Stevens Point from the big play, allowing a 91-yard kickoff return and passing plays of 74 and 64 yards, all for touchdowns. Including an overtime loss in its opener to nationally ranked Wabash (Ind.), Albion has already equaled its loss total from a year ago when it finished 9-2, but the Britons still are among the favorites to win the MIAA again this season even after losing a number of key performers from an offense that last year ranked among the very best in Division III.
Lakeland will provide live video and live statistics for today's game at
https://portal.stretchinternet.com/lc/.
For the rest of Saturday's game notes please click
here.
