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Carnegie Mellon presents big test for W&J

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Washington & Jefferson College’s football team faces its toughest test of the season against one of its peskiest rivals Saturday.

And the Presidents will do so under the lights.

Carnegie Mellon lost to W&J by a touchdown last year and a field goal in overtime in 2016. A share of first place in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference will be at stake with a 7 p.m. kickoff at Cameron Stadium.

“They’re one of the favorites in the conference, along with us and Case Western,” said W&J head coach Mike Sirianni. “They have a nice team coming back. We haven’t had to play a four-quarter game yet. We expect to play four quarters (against CMU) and we’re capable of that.”

W&J has disposed of St. John Fisher, 37-12, and Thiel, 55-0, and CMU is coming off a victory over Rochester after a first-week bye.

“They always seem to reload,” said CMU head coach Rich Lackner. “They lose a good wideout and another one steps up. They graduate a quarterback and another one steps up. … They have good, tough, solid players.”

The Presidents moved up two spots to No. 13 in the d3football.com Top 25 poll. CMU is unranked.

One of the better matchups of this game is W&J wide receiver Andrew Wolf, who has had two outstanding starts, going against CMU’s top cornerback Ethan Anderson, a Peters Township graduate.

“They have two big cornerbacks,” said Wolf, who has a combined 15 receptions for 329 yards and five touchdowns. “It’s going to be a more difficult matchup. (Anderson) looks aggressive on film. You can tell he’s an aggressive guy.”

Anderson had a first-quarter interception that set up a touchdown in CMU’s 31-7 victory over Rochester last week.

“We have a game plan for them,” said Anderson. “I know (Wolf) is very fast and has the ability to catch any ball. He backed up one of the best players in the league (Jesse Zubik) last year.”

Anderson said he has been getting good practice looks from senior wide receiver Andrew Bartusiak, an Upper St. Clair graduate who is a captain on offense.

“We room together and we’re pretty close,” Anderson said of Bartusiak. “I compete against him in practice so I know he’s a great receiver.”

CMU lost star running back Sam Benger, who rushed for 1,053 yards and scored 10 touchdowns last year, to graduation. Rory Hubbard rushed for 190 yards on 20 carries against Rochester.

“Rory is built differently than Sam, taller, leaner,” said Lackner. “Sam had that burst from 9 to 10. Rory has a little more wiggle to him, a looser hip style of thing.”

Carnegie Mellon’s defense will have to find a way to stop W&J’s high-potency offense. Presidents’ quarterback Jacob Adams has had two strong games, passing for 607 yards and six touchdowns. He hasn’t thrown an interception in 54 attempts. Running backs Jordan West and E.J. Thompson have a combined 356 yards and five touchdowns.

“We have the potential to be very good,” said Sirianni. “We’re young. We’re still a work in progress.”

Waynesburg

at Bethany

Kickoff: 7 p.m., Saturday

Waynesburg University will be looking for its first win of the season when the Yellow Jackets travel to Bethany for a Presidents’ Athletic Conference matchup under the lights.

Jake Dougherty seems too have cemented himself as the No. 1 quarterback after completing 24 of 36 passes for 171 yards against a strong Westminster defense in a 27-12 loss.

Bethany broke open a close game against Grove City last week with two fourth quarter touchdowns in a 27-7 victory. Raekwon Wright ran for 127 yards and a touchdown, and the Bison defense held the Wolverines to 167 yards.

California at Shippensburg

Kickoff: 1 p.m., Saturday

If close counted, California University’s football team would be in much better shape. The Vulcans have lost two games by a combined eight points: Ohio Dominican, 28-23, and Kutztown, 34-31.

The Vulcans are 0-2 for only the third time in the last two decades (1999, 2009). Shippensburg is 2-0 after an impressive 25-21, last-second win against Slippery Rock.

Cal got a welcome return to the offense when running back Nick Grissom was given a medical hardship waiver for 2016, granting him a rare sixth year of eligibility. He missed 2015 with an injury before setting career highs with 1,015 rushing yards and nine touchdowns in 2016.

Freshman quarterback Noah Mitchell passed for 418 yards against Kutztown, the fourth-highest total in a game in NCAA Division II this year.

Shippensburg freshman quarterback Brycen Mussina is the son of former major league pitcher Mike Mussina, who played 18 seasons with the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees.

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