Lions need to thrash Gorillas within inches of their lives
Philip Martin

Sports Editor

  Four and 0, baby, four and freakin  0.

Who would have thought the Lions would be 4-0 going into the Miner s Bowl? Well, not me, that s for sure. We have the momentum to catapult us back into the spotlight as a contender for the MIAA championship. I can smell it, can you smell it? Yeah, you know the smell - the sweet smell of victory.

The Lions, led by Josh Chapman, have been putting up impressive numbers all year long. Look at this past week s game for example: 533 yards of total offense by Chapman, which not only broke the MIAA record, but smashed it. Yes, you are correct in thinking it is 533 total yards in a single game. No, I m not making this up. The previous record was a mere 475 total yards set last year by Northwest Missouri.

Chapman only needs 131 yards to move into the No. 1 spot in Missouri Southern s career total offense. Something tells me this is going to happen Saturday. By the way, Chapman is sixth in Southern s all-time single-game passing yards list with 337 yards. His four touchdown passes tied him for the second-best day in school history.

That is pretty impressive, but the team as a whole stacked up a whopping 646 yards of total offense. This passed the previous school record of 619 yards set in 1983.

What s more important, however, is the upcoming Miner s Bowl. How do I think we will fair against the dreaded Pitt State Gorillas? I think we will kick them down the evolutionary scale a couple of places. I think the game will finally show human beings did not evolve from monkeys.

I don t care if they are undefeated just like us, because supposedly, Washburn and Pitt State have the exact same defensive plays. So if anything, we learned a thing or two from the Sept. 29 game.

Plus, I heard Pitt State s starting quarterback was injured and the team doesn t know who will be starting Saturday. This cannot be good for the Gorillas. If you don t know who will be starting quarterback before the game, then you may be looking at a loss.

Which brings me to another point. I want to see tons of Lions  fans there. I want there to be so many fans for our team that they have to sit on the home side and make the Pitt State fans worry about what they are going to say. We need the fan support to make it through this game. A lot of people think we won t be able to pull this off, but we can.

We can and we will pull off the upset. You know why? Because Pitt doesn t even worry about us, I guarandamntee it.

Another thing is Pitt just put down new turf, and when we win, this will show the College how well we can play. Plus, it will get big business to wake up and say,  Hey, why don t we chip in and help Southern put down new turf?  Yeah, how about that?

Fan support is the key here folks. We keep the momentum going into each game and keep kicking the crap out of these teams and we can take the conference championship. Maybe if we re lucky, and just so happen to lose on Saturday but beat everyone else, we could end up playing PSU for the championship, and then we will beat them within inches of their lives and make them think we are not worthless anymore.

A victory in the Miner s Bowl will bring us back to glory. Let us not forget that it is the 30th anniversary of our winning the National Championship and going 12-0. That is what we need right now - a return to excellence, a return to glory.