Golden Eagles Soar Past Mountain Lions

Calvinaugh Jones takes the handoff from Brian Novak. 
Photo courtesy of cumountainlions.com

When it rains it pours, and it rained on the Concord University Football team’s hopes of a return to the playoffs as they dropped a Thursday night road game against the University of Charleston in the state’s capitol this past week. 

The visiting Concord Mountain Lions were looking to rack up another dominating win against a conference opponent after routing West Virginia Wesleyan last week, but could not overcome a dominating start from Charleston Golden Eagles. Charleston quarterback Jeremy Johnson had three touchdown runs of 10, 75, and 12 yards, respectively, to lead the Golden Eagles to a 20-0 lead at the 10:04 mark in the second quarter. Concord would respond with a 12 yard touchdown catch by TJ Smith to cut the deficit to 13 points, but a 16 yard UC touchdown pass from Johnson and a last second field goal gave the Golden Eagles a 29-7 halftime lead.

The Concord defense would not allow another Charleston point, as the offense scored two second half touchdowns to cut the deficit to 29-21, but a pass out of a fake field goal attempt formation was broken up and killed the momentum of the Mountain Lion offense. Charleston would go on to chew time off of the clock and ultimately secure a 29-21 win. 

The win dropped Concord to 3-2, the same record they have in Mountain East Conference play and 1-2 on the road after a season opening loss at West Liberty, while Charleston improved to 4-1 in the conference and overall. 

Concord senior running back Calvinaugh Jones had his best rushing performance of the year against Charleston, rushing for 125 yards while Charleston quarterback Johnson had a game high 184 yards rushing to go along with 109 yards passing. 

As mentioned earlier, the Mountain Lion’s chances at a return to the playoffs become even more unlikely after another loss. It is not impossible as the Mountain East Conference has earned access, which allows the winner of the conference to automatically receive a playoff berth If they are ranked In the top eight in their respective region, but regional rankings are not released until later in the season and Concord may need some help, as four teams in the conference currently sit ahead of them in the rankings. Those teams in order of first to fourth are Shepherd, Charleston, Glenville State, and West Liberty. Concord has yet to play Shepherd and Glenville State but have already lost to West Liberty and Charleston. 

The best case scenario would be for Charleston to lose two more times, West Liberty to lose one more time, and Shepherd to lose to Concord and one other team before the end of the regular season, and of course Concord would have to win out, but even that doesn’t secure a playoff berth. It has been a turbulent season thus far, but there is still a lot of football to be played. Concord will return to Callaghan Stadium this Saturday for a homecoming weekend that will be full of festivities and a crowd of alumni ready to watch their alma mater win.