Published: November 02, 2009 01:33 am      

FSU defense outstanding in loss

FAIRMONT — No one can argue that Fairmont State’s defense played well enough to win Saturday against visiting Concord University at Duvall-Rosier Field on Senior Day.

However, the Falcons’ offense squandered opportunities to put points on the scoreboard on four trips inside the red zone in the third and fourth quarters, including three in a row on its first three drives of the second half.

Thus, Concord, which came up with critical turnovers on three consecutive Fairmont trips inside the 20 and blocked a field goal on the fourth, snapped a two-game losing streak to the Falcons with a 15-9 victory.

The win also halted the Mountain Lions’ 12-game road losing streak in West Virginia Conference games which dated back to a 10-7 overtime victory over West Virginia Wesleyan in Buckhannon in 2006. It also secured Concord’s first winning season in football since 1998.

For the third week in a row Fairmont’s defense held an opponents’ offense under 300 total yards. And the past two weeks the Falcons have done that against opposing offenses which came into the games nationally ranked.

Two weeks ago against Seton Hill, which had the 15th-ranked offense in the nation, the Falcons held the Griffins to a season-low 244 total yards on 52 plays in a 34-13 FSU win. Saturday the Falcons limited Concord's sixth-ranked offense to a season-low 279 total yards on 65 plays, including just 103 total yards in the second half 65 of which came on one pass play.

“That was our lowest offensive output of the season by far,” said first-year Concord coach Mike Kellar, whose team improved to 6-4 overall and to 4-3 in the league. “I mean 279 total yards — that’s anemic for us.”

Indeed it was for a team which came into the contest averaging 468.4 yards per game and 34.2 points.

But the play of FSU’s stingy defense, particularly in the second half, had something to do with that.

“When you have opportunities to score you’ve got to capitalize on them. We all know that and we didn’t do that and we came up short as a result,” said FSU senior linebacker Nate Black, who had seven total tackles, including two for losses which gives him 35 tackles for losses for his career and moves him into fifth place all-time in school history.

“Defensively, I can speak for the whole unit. We played with more passion and pride than I’ve seen in my whole career here at Fairmont. We ran out there on the field like a bunch of crazy dudes who wanted to make every tackle. We got to their ball carriers, swarmed on tackles and to be real honest had a lot of fun out there. Even though we were down, we played like we were ahead. It was fun. It would’ve been more fun to win, but we did what we could do and we all really enjoyed doing it.”

FSU junior inside linebacker Dan Dario, who tied sophomore defensive end Luke Black for team-high tackle honors with eight in the loss, agrees.

“The way we played and the way we were able to keep our intensity up even after the turnovers showed what we should've been able to do all year on defense,” said Dario. “Coach (Mike) Lopez keeps telling us it’s not how you start a season or start anything it’s how you keep progressing and how you finish. I think that’s what we're doing right now.

“We’re not happy with the loss obviously, but we’ve got one game left now in this season. If we can carry our defensive performance today over to next Saturday and get our offense rolling a little bit on their side and maybe feeding off of us then maybe we can become the complete team that we've been striving to be all season. I want to see us finish something with a complete team effort in every phase.”

The 3-7 Falcons will have that chance Saturday at 1 p.m. when they visit Lakin Field in Institute to battle 2-7 West Virginia State. The Yellow Jackets, though, have won the last two meetings with FSU.