After a week break following its season-opening win, the Lakeland University football team begins a tough three-game stretch on the road when it travels to face Hope (Mich.) College Saturday afternoon for a 12:30 p.m. Central time kick at Ray and Sue Smith Stadium.
The Muskies will face the Flying Dutchmen, the preseason favorites in the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association, in a game that is part of the MIAA-NACC Challenge. It's the first of three consecutive road games for Lakeland that also includes a trip to nationally ranked Wisconsin-Platteville next week and the annual Cheese Bowl game against rival Concordia University Wisconsin the following week.
The Muskies were idle last week, but two weeks ago in their season debut opened the new Taylor Field in style with a 43-29 win over Carroll. In the first night game on campus in school history and in front of an overflow crowd,
Michael Whitley (
Sr.-Vidalia, La.) passed for 473 yards and four touchdowns and also rushed for 66 yards and two more scores. Whitley completed touchdown passes of 87 yards to
Dezmen Morse (
Sr.-Milwaukee, Wis.) and 99 yards to
Jamal Hawkins-Sconiers (
Jr.-St. James, Mo.), the latter a school record for longest pass play, and Lakeland built a 36-7 halftime lead.
Oman Smothers (
Fr.-Gadsden, Ala.) then intercepted two passes in the second half, leading a stout defensive effort that limited the Pioneers to 15 points until the guests scored two touchdowns in the final minutes.
Hope also is coming off a win, bounced back from a close loss in its season opener to shut out Defiance (Ohio) 38-0 in their home opener last week. Brandan Campbell rushed for 89 yards and three touchdowns and the Hope defense limited the Yellow Jackets to 127 yards of total offense. All three of Campbell's touchdown runs came in the first half as Hope built a 28-0 halftime lead. Griffin Weigl posted an interception and a sack to lead the defense, which sacked Defiance quarterbacks eight times.
Lakeland and Hope are meeting for the fifth time ever, with four of those meetings coming in the last eight years. The Flying Dutchmen hold a 3-1 series lead and won the last matchup 25-22 at the Muskies' Taylor Field just under three years ago on Sept. 20, 2014. Hope scored the go-ahead touchdown with 2:18 left in the game, driving 60 yards after Lakeland was stopped on 4th-and-1. Mike Wynn caught 11 passes for 113 yards in the game,
Kezlow Smith added five catches for 128 yards and two touchdowns, and current senior
Peyton Petersen (
Farmington Hills, Mich.) returned a kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown in his second collegiate game. Lakeland's lone win in the series was a 27-12 victory at Hope in 2010 when Roberto Flores caught 10 passes for 167 yards and Tony Faller returned an interception for a touchdown.
Hope College will have live video of Saturday's game hosted on its Youtube channel at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG7rc_7b5PE. WVYN FM 92.7 in Holland, Mich., also will have an audio broadcast of the game over the air in Michigan and available online at
http://player.listenlive.co/29281.
For the rest of this week's game notes please click
here.
