9/13/24

SCRANTON, Pa. -- After two games of growing pains and shaking off the rust, the #13 Lackawanna College Falcons football squad is set to host its highest-ranked opponent, the #3 Snow College Badgers, in a marquee match-up on Saturday night. 

You can read the full games notes for this week's contest HERE.

Kickoff is scheduled for a 7:00pm ET start at PenFed Field at Memorial Stadium in Scranton. Live coverage will be provided on the Lackawanna College Athletics Network (lackawannafalcons.com/LIVE). Sports Information Director Tom Ferguson will handle the play-by-play duties. This is the sixth overall meeting between the two sides since 2019. Snow is 4-1 in the previous five games, having won the last four contests. Last year's game was a rout in favor of the Badgers, as the then-fifth-ranked Badgers pummeled the Falcons, 50-21, on a cold night in Ephraim, UT in front of a national audience on ESPN+. The Badgers scored the game's first 36 points and had seven of their first eight drives end in touchdowns, while Lackawanna committed eleven first half penalties and offered little resistance. The last time the Falcons won against Snow came back in 2019, coincidentally, on September 14th, when the Falcons stunned the Badgers 17-6 in Ephraim, UT. That game, in many ways, served as the coming-out party for a Lackawanna team that ran the table in the regular season and made the 2019 NJCAA National Championship. 

This year's Falcons (2-0) come into the contest as the #13 team in the latest NJCAA Division I rankings. Lackawanna was a winner in its last game, a 24-7 win in Virginia against Division III opponent Louisburg College. In that game, the Lackawanna defense was dominant, compiling over 20 tackles-for-loss and eight sacks, only giving up points on a broken play in the fourth quarter when the starters had already exited the contest. The offense wasn't special by any stretch, and Lackawanna was wasteful in the first half with several key misses on fourth downs, but the defense kept the Falcons in good positions, and Lackawanna eventually cashed in. An opening-drive field goal from Keegan Hughes (Scranton, PA) represented the first score of the game, and Lackawanna wouldn't have a chance to add anything until the second quarter, when Louisburg fumbled near midfield, and Damonte Foreman (Elizabeth City, NC) scooped it up and ran it back inside the five-yard line. Josiah Williams (Emmaus, PA) ran it in to give the Falcons a 10-0 lead at the break. Maurice Edwards (Mundelein, IL), who finished with 91 yards, ran it in from 35-yards in the second half for a touchdown, and quarterback Wyatt Hagan (Chantilly, VA) found receiver Michael Hodge (Richmond, VA) for a touchdown on a subsequent drive that extended the Lackawanna lead to 24-0 in the third, before a broken coverage play led to a Louisburg TD in the fourth. Hagan finished with 184 yards passing, Hodge had three catches for 67 yards, and fellow receiver Daryl Harper (Montgomery Village, MD) also had three grabs for 67 yards. Safety Victor Holt (Olyphant, PA) led the defense with eight tackles, five solos, while Nyair Graham (Camden, NJ) had seven tackles, including three tackles-for-loss and two sacks. Linebacker Andrew Marshall (Carroll, OH) had 3.5 tackles-for-loss and 2.5 sacks to go with his five tackles.      

Snow (3-0) enters the game as the third-ranked squad in the nation, having pummeled its first three opponents by combined scores of 56, 70, and 62 to 0. That's 188 points unanswered through 12 quarters of action in 2024. Most recently, the Badgers defeated Air Force Prep by a 62-point margin at home last weekend. Snow had five sacks and four forced fumbles, holding the Huskies to just 120 yards of total offense, while putting up nearly 400 yards of their own. Snow's defense had 17 tackles-for-loss, and consistently set up its offense with excellent field position. Snow was out to a 14-0 lead early in the first, thanks to a quick scoring drive and then, after a bad snap on a punt attempt, the Badgers cashed in with the ball inside the Prep 20-yard line. From there, the Badgers kept cashing in on Air Force mistakes, and the game was never close. Donnie Smith had 243 yards passing and five touchdowns, and Adonis Tillman ran for 111 yards and two scores.  Titan Saxton, who won NJCAA Division I Defensive Player of the Week, had eight tackles and three tackles-for-loss. 

This is the first true road game of the season for Snow, and is their first trip to Scranton since the 2022 season. That was a dominant victory for Snow, 30-7, in a match-up of top ten teams potentially fighting for a playoff spot. The Falcons spotted the Badgers a 2-0 lead on a fumbled kickoff return in the end zone, and the visitors eventually broke open a defensive struggle with some muscle in the second half.  
 
This game represents an important contest for both squads, who both want to impress the country at large with the few ranked opponent match-ups they have. Snow, aside from Lackawanna, has defending national champion Iowa Western CC and #9 Georgia Military left on its schedule, in terms of current nationally-ranked opponents. The Falcons have a pair of games with Georgia Military this year, the first of which is next weekend in Milledgeville, GA. 

Snow's head coach is Zac Erekson, now in his fifth year at the helm of the Badgers. Under Erekson's direction, the Badgers have been a force on the national stage, once making the national championship in the spring 2021 season, then re-appearing on the title chase scene in the fall 2021 season, making the semi-finals. Last year's squad finished 9-3 and made the Game One Bowl against Iowa Central CC. Erekson's coaching roots come from spending time coaching high school football in Texas. He's a Utah native, and attended Dixie State before graduating early and going to BYU. He's got a bachelor's degree from BYU and a master's degree from APU. 

The head football coach for Lackawanna College is Mark Duda, now in his 31st season at the helm for the Falcons. Duda has 208 career victories, the most among active coaches in the NJCAA. Coach Duda, an NJCAA Hall-of-Famer, has produced over 400 scholarship athletes and had 20 different players end up with NFL contracts after spending time at Lackawanna. Lackawanna has had a .500 or better record in 26 of his 30 previous seasons, and has five official undefeated regular seasons. Duda is a northeast PA native, graduating from Wyoming Valley West in 1979, a prominent member of the Spartans' vaunted "Mad Dog" defense. Duda went on to play at the University of Maryland, setting a record of 13 sacks in a year, which stood for 30 years, before being drafted by the then-St. Louis Cardinals in 1983. Duda made 34 starts and 55 appearances, recording 9.5 sacks in the NFL. He earned a bachelor's degree from East Stroudsburg in 1991, and has a master's degree from Thomas Edison College. 

Lackawanna College is back to work next Saturday, September 21st, when the Falcons take a trip down the east coast to the heart of Georgia to take on their rivals, the Georgia Military College Bulldogs. The kick is set for 1:00pm ET from Davenport Field in Milledgeville, GA.