Lakes, Bears ready for revenge
Mercer head coach Bobby Lamb remembers his team’s loss to Tennessee Tech last year well.
Standout running back Alex Lakes does, too, but for a different reason.
The Bears finished with 416 yards on 87 plays but lost 29-22 to the Golden Eagles in the first matchup between the two programs. Lamb fixated on the offensive numbers — all those yards with no penalties and no turnovers — and yet the Bears lost.
Lakes focused on the injury he suffered in the game: a punctured lung and three cracked ribs.
“I definitely remember it, especially because that was the game when I got hurt,” said Lakes, who needs 114 yards to reach 2,000 rushing yards for his career. “So we’re kind of trying to get some get back this weekend with a win, hopefully.”
The Bears will try to get that win, which would be their first of the season at 4 p.m. on Saturday at Five Star Stadium. The 0-2 start is Mercer’s first since its program’s reboot in 2013, and the Bears are off the week after Saturday’s game.
Lamb said offensive lineman Thomas Marchman, who missed the loss to Georgia Tech, should be back Saturday. Wide receiver Chandler Curtis has yet to play this season, and Lamb said Curtis would be 50-50 this week.
Linebacker Jonathan Ward suffered a shoulder injury against Georgia Tech and probably is out, but Lamb said Ward will be evaluated later in the week.
Marcus Satterfield, the offensive coordinator at Chattanooga in 2009, is in his first season as Tennessee Tech’s head coach. Golden Eagles defensive coordinator Shawn Quinn was at Western Carolina last year.
The Golden Eagles are 1-1 with a 21-7 loss to Wofford and a 41-7 win over Austin Peay.
“They know the Southern Conference; they’ve been through the Southern Conference,” Lamb said. “Coach Satterfield, (I’ve) been knowing him for a while. He’s a great offensive mind. He loves to use multiple formations, multiple personnel and certainly likes to run the ball first and uses everything off the play-action. On the defensive side of the ball, they play a 4-3, they really run to the ball well ...
“So it will be a great challenge for our football team.”
Before Lamb could look ahead to that game, he had to think back on last year’s loss to the Golden Eagles. Mercer settled for three Jagger Lieb field goals (24, 26 and 19 yards), and that kept the Bears from putting the game away as Tennessee Tech scored with 1:47 left to take the lead.
“At the end of the day, we kicked too many field goals in the red zone. We couldn’t score touchdowns, and that came back to bite us,” Lamb said. “That’s something that we really worked hard on, and we’ll continue to do that.”
This story was originally published September 12, 2016 at 3:38 PM with the headline "Lakes, Bears ready for revenge."