Williams football doomed for losing season with loss to undefeated Middlebury

WILLIAMSTOWN – The last time Williams football had a four-loss season was 1987, when the Ephs finished 4-4. This year, Head Coach Aaron Kelton’s squad has been hampered by a porous defense that has seen the team given up 30 points or more in their last two games to drop the Eph’s to (1-3) overall.

“We just need to get better every time we are on the field,” said Kelton. “[Including] every player, we are not good enough to take breaks on [pass] coverages or [not] do what the coaches are coaching them to do.”

Middlebury threw the ball around the field against the Ephs, utilizing a passing attack that racked up over 430 yards.

The Panthers used a spread offense with three and four wideouts, to throw the ball underneath, through the middle and down the field for four touchdowns against a Williams team that looked stagnant in a standard cover-two defense.

“They made some good adjustments to us,” Kelton said afterwards. “We didn’t cover some guys – those guys are pretty good, [Middlebury’s] Zach Driscoll [three touchdowns, 12 catches, 250 yards receiving] and [tight end] Billy Chapman [115 yards receiving] is good and their quarterback McCallum Foote is good.”

Driscoll and Foote hooked up to open the game from 28-yards out to put the Panthers up early, 7-0, while the Ephs used a rarely-seen running game to try to slow the Middlebury offense down and keep Foote on the sidelines.

“We ran the ball well today,” Kelton said. “I am pleased of our guys for that. We wanted to run the ball well to keep their offense off the field, which is explosive.”

The Ephs struggled to get back into the game however, when two red zone drives in the first half stalled inside the 10-yard line, as Williams quarterback Adam Marske had one of his worst performances as an Eph.

“[Marske, 13-29, three interceptions] is not sharp,” Kelton said, “and he is not confident right now, and it’s really difficult on our team as a leader, but we are trying to work it out and go from there.”

The defeat puts the Ephs in a bind as they head into the second half of the season with Tufts, Wesleyan and Amherst still looming large on the Ephs’ schedule.

“It’s not one guy, it’s not one play, it’s not anything like that,” Kelton said. “What it is, is that we need to play better as a team, as a unit, and we need to put the ball in the box when you down there. Second-and-goal – we got to get better at that, and that’s just what happened.”

Williams’ lone touchdown came in the third quarter when Kristian Lapointe took a carry from five yards out and scored with 7:23 left to cut the Panthers lead to 16-13. However, the Ephs’ defense couldn’t slow down the spread offense of Middlebury as they cruised the rest of the way, scoring the last 14 points on pass plays.

“We didn’t get stops today that we needed,” Kelton said. “We knew it was coming and we weren’t disciplined.”

Kelton spoke to the team after the game and challenged them to come back next week and “buckle up” as they travel to Somerville to play the Jumbos.

“We got to get back to the drawing board and buckle up,” Kelton said. “Our character is being challenged at 1-3, and if I have to work 24 hours a day I will, and the ones who want to come with me will and the ones who don’t – we will have to figure out what they will have to do after this.”

Posted by Tim Davis on October 18, 2012. Filed under College Sports,Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry