LAKELAND, Fla.—The Fire football team is back home after its two longest road trips of the season and a bye week since its home opener.
Entering the contest at 1-2, with the two losses by a combined six points the Fire will look to start Sun Conference play on the right foot when they host Warner on Saturday at 7 p.m.
Freshman punter
Jay Brockhaus is coming off a monster game against Faulkner where he had three of his six punts downed at the one-yard line with a long punt of 73 yards, which was one yard short of the eight-year-old program record. Brockhaus averaged 53.7 yards per punt last week to boost his season average to an NAIA-best 43.8 yards per punt.
Between the field position and the solid work by the defense, the Fire stayed in last week's game trailing by seven heading to the fourth quarter. A two-yard touchdown reception by
Tray Jackson tied the game at 10 with 2:44 to play and
Daniel Craig's blocked field goal attempt at the end of regulation sent the game to the extra session.
"I love the fight in the team and had a chance to win all the way until the last play of the game like we have in all three games, but we aren't starting very fast and need to look at why that is," said coach
Adam Waugh.
Penalties were also a key issue for Southeastern as the Fire were flagged 13 times for 133 yards after committing just 11 penalties in the two previous games combined.
"I was really disappointed with the penalties since we had been a pretty disciplined team up until today," said Waugh. "The penalties hurt because we would get some momentum and a penalty would set us back and took us out of scoring position or put us in a third and extra long and it was hard to convert."
The defense was highlighted by another stellar week from
Ja'Kobe Clinton who made 11 total tackles with 2.5 for loss in the contest. This on the heels of his NAIA Defensive Player of the Week performance against Reinhardt where he was key to two third quarter takeaways to lead the Fire to an upset over the 10
th ranked Eagles.
Warner comes into the contest with a 3-0 record, picking up an overtime win at NCAA Division III Brevard followed by a 46-13 win over Fort Lauderdale, and last week racked up 502 yards of offense in a 63-6 win over Kentucky Christian last week.
At 46 points per game, the Royals are seventh in the NAIA in scoring. Running back Myle Metiam is averaging 6.8 yards per carry and has three touchdowns this season. Quarterback Xavier Holliday has completed 51% of his passes for 603 yards with six touchdowns and no interceptions.
The Royals' defense has been solid against the run, giving up an average of just 96 rushing yards per contest and only one rushing touchdown in three games. They are also a +3 on the season in the giveaway-takeaway ratio.
The Fire and Royals are meeting for the ninth time. The first game Victory Field hosted on September 13, 2014 was Southeastern hosting Warner and when the two teams met last year, it was the first game on Warner's new on-campus football field. Southeastern has won all eight of the previous meetings, including a classic in 2016 which saw Tyson Kee make an interception in the endzone just shy of 1:30 a.m. following a nearly three-hour lightning delay to give the Fire a 52-44 triple overtime win.
Tickets are available at southeastern.universitytickets.com
