BROOKLINE – After a week of getting slapped around by Hurricane Isabel, the William and Mary Tribe stepped into the ring (Parsons Field) Saturday to face Northeastern in an Atlantic-10 Conference showdown. They didn’t fare much better.
In what amounted to an older, stronger and wiser boy beating the snot out of his kid brother’s pal for milk money, rather than a title fight, the Huskies rolled to 4-0 behind a 48-14 decision.
Despite forcing four first half turnovers, the Huskies led only 17-6 at the break. Then, after a nine-play, 73-yard Tribe scoring drive that put the Tribe within three points to start the second half, NU seemed destined for a repeat of last week’s heart-stopping 42-39 win at Rhode Island.
But Peter Harris, Anthony Riley and Shawnn Gyles had something to say about that.
Harris, in his sixth year donning the Husky black and red, notched his second consecutive career-high in rushing yards (123) and scored a pair of touchdowns. The Brockton native spent a couple of years on the sideline due to a medical redshirt after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee.
“I can’t say enough about the way we’re running the football,” Coach Don Brown said. “Peter just makes me smile every time I see him touch the ball.”
Both Riley (10 carries, 41 yards) and Gyles (12 carries, 83 yards) tripped the goalline on seven yard runs in the second half.
Directly after the Tribe cut the lead to three, Northeastern answered with a six play, 61 yard series to cushion the Huskies lead back to 10. Then, after forcing a three and out on the next William and Mary drive, Brown’s gang sealed the deal when William and Mary snapped the ball out of the end zone to give the Huskies a safety.
After fielding the ensuing punt on their 25 yard line, Harris kicked it into overdrive on a seven play 75 yard drive that chewed up three minutes of the game clock and put the Huskies in the driver’s seat with a 34-14 lead.
Harris capped off the drive with a one-yard scoring dive, but his most impressive run came directly before the scoring rush. On first-and-ten from the 11 yard-line, Harris hit the hole with speed, hurdled one defender and then spun off another before falling a yard shy of paydirt. It was on this scamper that Harris broke his previous career-high.
Both teams entered the contest limping. Northeastern had a number of players giving gutsy pain-filled efforts, while four members of the Tribe lost their lunch during play after a hectic week spent dodging a natural disaster.
“When we got done with Rhode Island last week, I didn’t know who the heck was going to play for us,” Brown said. “I really didn’t. We had one defensive lineman, David Williams, who we thought had broken his leg, but ended up not fracturing his right leg. He went from not practicing Tuesday, to running around on Wednesday, to practicing Thursday and starting today. Jeremiah Mason, our corner, was not able to start. He could’ve been available for emergency duty, though. Anthony Nolen, our safety, played almost every snap with a bad shoulder, and Charles Cameron (cornerback) played with a tweaked hamstring and had what I think was his best day as a Husky.”
The most heroic effort, though, could have been from junior middle linebacker Liam Ezekial. The preseason All-American nominee pulled his hamstring last week in Rhode Island.
“Then, the guy next to me (Ezekial), there was no way in the world I thought he would play,” Brown said. “But he found a way to get back and practice by Friday. I have a rule that if you don’t practice by Wednesday, you don’t start, but it didn’t take us too damn long to get him in the game.”
The week for the Tribe wasn’t much better. When the team departed Williamsburg for Boston, three of the four starters on the offensive line had five feet of standing water in their kitchen. In addition, a house owned by three members of the coaching staff had a surprise visitor last week: a tree. With just one full practice under their belts, the team was hurting.
Other than his 25-yard touchdown reception in the first quarter, NU shut down All-American receiver Rich Musinski, thanks in part to senior cornerback Charles Cameron’s (who was named A-10 Defensive Player of the Week) effort with a strained hamstring. Brown threw out the game plan when it came to blanketing the 6-1, 195-pound wideout.
“Last year when we played them, we put Art Smith on him and thought that was a hell of a coaching move during the week,” Brown said. “It was the dumbest thing we’ve ever done. All it does is mess up everyone’s assignments, so our feeling was if you got him, you’ve got him. We weren’t going to just put one guy on him, we were going to share the workload and if you got him, you got him.
“On Tuesday he went up and tweaked his hamstring going for a ball,” Brown said of Cameron. “A week ago he had a groin injury that most guys wouldn’t have played on. His first year [2000] we wish we could’ve redshirted him, but we needed him to play. He went to Maine and got killed, and it could have ruined him. But he became a solid starter in 2001 and opposite Art Smith last year and has just continued to grow and get better as a player. He’s more physical and more determined. It’s nice to watch him grow and develop not only as an athlete, but as a man, because he’s kind of grown up in our program.”
This Saturday, the number four Huskies march to Villanova to duke it out with the fifth-ranked Wildcats.
