Lakes, Curtis healthy for Bears

The Mercer football team’s offense averaged 28.9 points and 412.9 yards per game last season, and that was without two of the Bears’ most dangerous weapons at 100 percent.

Now that Alex Lakes and Chandler Curtis are healthy, the Bears are looking for even more production from their offense. Mercer opens practice Thursday as it gets ready for its season open at 7 p.m. on Sept. 1 against The Citadel.

“It’s nice to have those two guys back healthy,” Mercer head coach Bobby Lamb said earlier this summer. “Alex is really important to our offense, and Chandler is a weapon who is important for us, as well.”

Those two showed just how important they are two years ago. Lakes rushed for 1,107 yards and 17 touchdowns on 200 carries in 2014, while Curtis had 28 receptions for 564 yards and five touchdowns. Curtis also had three punt returns for touchdowns and an additional kickoff return for a score in his freshman season.

In 2015, however, Lakes was limited after suffering a punctured lung and three cracked ribs early in the season, while Curtis suffered a high ankle sprain.

“Last year was definitely rough, cracking three of my ribs and puncturing my lung in the third game and just making it hard to come back throughout the year,” Lakes said. “Having to play through injuries was tough, but this year, I’m healthy. I’ve been healthy this summer, just getting in shape and getting ready for this year.”

Lakes still played in 10 games in 2015, but he had only three starts, and his carries dropped to 128. He finished with 692 rushing yards and seven touchdowns. Curtis played in only three games and 42 snaps, and he finished with 13 catches for 153 yards and one touchdown.

“I’ve never really been injured in my whole career. I think the worst thing I’ve ever had is a broken finger; that’s about it. So it was real tough,” Lakes said. “It was really hard, especially those first couple of games when I was trying to feel my way back. But later on in the season, against like VMI and Furman, I could feel myself getting back to how it was the previous year.”

Now Lakes is counting on being healthy with his teammates and having a strong season in the Southern Conference. The Bears were picked fourth in the preseason by the conference’s media members and fifth by the conference’s coaches.

“I’m very excited about what we can do this season,” Lakes said. “Health-wise, as long as we can stay healthy, and I can stay healthy myself, we should be pretty good. Our expectations are we want to compete for a SoCon championship. We don’t want to settle for anything less. We want to go out there and compete every week and try to win a ring, and that’s been our goal all summer. That’s what we’ve been preaching.”

This story was originally published July 29, 2016 at 4:03 PM with the headline "Lakes, Curtis healthy for Bears."