The Morgan State University Bears drop to 3-4 losing to FCS-Independent Merrimack College Warriors this past Saturday evening 32-24.
The Bears special teams had trouble in the first half setting the Warriors up in good field position multiple times leading to 17 of their 20 first-half points.
Coach Wilson shares how the Bears struggled in the first half offensively, and on special teams and how they could have played better.
“The guys are resilient, but we can’t start off like that. We played horribly special teams and offensively in the first half of the game, second half of the game we made some plays and gave ourselves an opportunity,” said Wilson.
Morgan State fell behind early senior running back Jermaine Corbett of the Warriors returned the opening kickoff 99 yards for a touchdown.
After the opening offensive drive stalled for the Bears, junior linebacker Kendal Sims blocked a punt that put the Warriors deep in Morgan’s territory.
Set up in excellent field position, Pererira took it himself for the eight yard touchdown run giving Merrimack an early two-score lead.
The Warrior’s sophomore quarterback Ayden Pereira had 11 carries for 66 yards and a rushing touchdown, he was the team’s leading rusher this game.
“He’s a dual guy, he’s a guy that could run the ball with his legs… they made some plays towards the end of the game, but I think our defense played well enough to win the ballgame,” said Wilson.
Both teams traded field goals with Warriors senior kicker Liliam Davis kicking a pair of field goals to extend their lead at the half 20-3.
The Bears completely flipped the script after the halftime break, leaning into their run game scoring 14 unanswered points in the third quarter.
Senior running back Myles Miree had 18 carries for 42 yards and 2 touchdowns, he touched on the adjustments the team had to make going into the second half.
“Well we knew we had to get back to running the ball, that’s what we do best is just running the ball, we had to come out strong and get downhill,” said Miree.
Senior running back J.J. Davis had his best-rushing effort this season when the Bears needed it the most.
“At halftime, we just told the coaches they couldn’t handle us upfront they just got a lot of bodies, we told them just trust us… so it came down to our good guys versus their good guys,” said Davis.
Davis finished with 14 carries 71 yards and a 1-yard go-ahead touchdown in the middle of the fourth quarter that gave the Bears their first lead of the day and ignited the crowd.
The Warriors would immediately answer and regain the lead with a six-play drive capped off by Corbett’s 2-yard touchdown run.
A turnover on downs by the Bear’s offense led to another late field goal by the Warriors ending the Bear’s hope of a late comeback.
Morgan’s sack leader Elijah Williams applied constant pressure throughout the game adding another sack on the day to his total (6).
“Just understanding ourselves and our game plan, really we don’t focus too much on what the other team is. We got to look at ourselves and in the mirror and understand what we do best and what we don’t do as good and we got to improve everything,” said Williams.
Nana Asante made his presence felt in the Warriors backfield tallying two sacks and a forced fumble this game. He expresses how he wanted to impact the game for the better in the second half.
“I just tried to do my best, anything I could do to help the team out, I don’t care about my numbers, I just try to do what I can to help my team,” said Asante.
Heading into the bye week, Davis shares what the team expects going forward for the rest of the season.
“Honestly we just want to get healthy, we showed that we could have beat this team so now we need to move on from this, and get healthy and come back ready for conference play,” said Davis.
Coach Wilson speaks on entering conference play and what the team needs to work on moving forward.
“We got to get ready for conference play, hopefully, we can get these guys back healthy this week, we had a number of guys down but hopefully a couple of guys get back for the conference play, But at the end of the day we have to play better team ball and we did not do that today,” said Wilson.
Saturday was Morgan’s band & community [youth] day, allowing students around the Baltimore area to see how a college band operates and participate in fun activities throughout Morgan’s campus.
RJY Chick Webb Council Inc. sponsored 250 youth to attend the game Saturday evening.
The Bears have a bye week before opening the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) schedule against the North Carolina Central Eagles at the O’Kelly-Riddick Stadium, on Saturday, October 26th at 3:30 p.m.
