Football Puts Winning Streak on the Line at AIC

Football Puts Winning Streak on the Line at AIC

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NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. – Winners of back-to-back games and four out of its last five contests, the Merrimack College football team visits last year's league runner-up, American International, on Saturday afternoon, as the Warriors look to move into a tie for second place in the jam-packed Northeast-10 Conference standings.

The Basics
 Date/Time: Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015 | 1 p.m.
Records: Merrimack (4-4, 4-3 NE-10) | AIC (3-5, 3-4 NE-10)
Location: Abdow Field | North Andover, Mass.

NE-10 Championship Weekend Outlook
 No. 1 hosts No. 2 in Championship Game | Odd-numbered seeds host even-numbered seeds

  1. Assumption (7-1)
  2. New Haven (5-2)  Has wins over Stonehill, LIU
  3. Stonehill (4-3) Has wins over Merrimack, LIU Post & Bentley
  4. LIU Post (4-3) Has wins over Merrimack
  5. Merrimack (4-3) Defeated Bentley/New Haven; Lost to Stonehill/Assumption/LIU
  6. Bentley (4-4) Lost to Stonehill/New Haven/Merrimack/Assumption; Yet to play LIU Post
  7. American Int'l (3-4) Defeated SCSU
  8. Southern Connecticut (3-4) 
  9. St. Anselm (2-5) 
  10. Pace (0-7)

All-Time vs. AIC:

Merrimack and AIC will face off for the 20th time dating back to 1997, and the Yellow Jackets hold the upper hand by winning 14 of those games. The story of the series, though, has been AIC winning the last nine contests between the two squads. Merrimack hasn't tasted victory over the Yellow Jackets since the 2006 campaign, a 37-13 win at home on Oct. 7. Since then, the series hasn't been close; aside from two four-point losses and a three-point setback last season, Merrimack has fallen by 10 or more points in every other game since then.

Last Time Out:

  • Merrimack saluted the 22-member Class of 2016 with a 52-6 rout of Pace last Saturday, as the Warriors concluded their regular season home slate on a high note to move back to .500 on the season and into fifth place in the NE-10 standings
  • After Pace opened the game with a touchdown midway through the first quarter, Merrimack responded early in the second to take a lead it would never relinquish. Senior tailback Adriell Mayes (Chesapeake, Va.) scored the first of two touchdowns on the day after plowing through the line from a yard out with 11:10 to go in the second quarter.
  • Five minutes later, senior Jere Brown hauled in his first of two touchdown passes from junior Nick Davis, as the Warriors carried a 14-6 lead into halftime.
  • A one-possession game quickly turned into a rout, as Merrimack put up 28 points in the third quarter on four consecutive touchdowns.
  • Junior Nick Laspada hauled in his first career receiving touchdown, scoring from 24 yards out and going in nearly untouched on a play-action from Davis early in the third quarter.
  • Five minutes later, Mayes broke from free and went in from 10 yards out to up the lead to 28-6; on Pace's next drive, graduate student Thomas Bradley capped off a sensational afternoon with his first pick-six in a Merrimack uniform, going 56 yards to the house to up the lead to 35-6.
  • Brown and Davis connected from 21 yards out late in the third to wrap up the most prolific offensive quarter of the season with the Warriors on top by a 42-6 margin.
  • Sophomore Stephen Camarro booted a 31-yard field goal early in the fourth before Davis wrapped up the scoring by scampering in from nine yards out to put a bow on a career afternoon that saw him finish with nearly 380 combined yards.

The Yellow Jackets:

  • Last year's league runner-up after winning the NE-10 title in 2013, AIC has endured an up-and-down season; after posting wins against LIU Post and Stonehill, two of the top-four teams in the league standings, the Yellow Jackets have dropped back-to-back games against Bentley and Assumption
  • Defense has been AIC's strength this year, as the Yellow Jackets rank second in the league in points per game allowed (20.3) and have totaled 21 sacks (4th)/NE-10) and 14 interceptions (2nd)
  • Offensively, AIC ranks eighth in the league averaging only 18.8 PPG and also rank ninth in total offense (269.6) and last in third-down success rate (27%)
  • Senior Maurice Easterling leads the NE-10 in rushing, averaging 113.6 yards per game while finding the end zone six times
  • Quarterback Kwame Jarvis has completed 72-of-124 (58.1%) of his passes for 864 yards and four touchdowns but has been picked off seven times
  • On defense, senior linebacker Jerrod Shelby leads the team with 10.1 tackles per game (4th/NE-10); Andrew Justice has posted a team-best seven sacks (T-1st/NE-10)

Up Next
 Merrimack concludes the regular season at Southern Connecticut State next Saturday (Nov. 7). Kickoff is set for 1 p.m.

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For continuing coverage of Merrimack College Athletics, visit MerrimackAthletics.com and follow the Warriors on Twitter and on Facebook.

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