Whitworth invites winless Pioneers for homecoming

Chris Sulages will bring a winless, but still proud, Lewis & Clark College football team into the Pine Bowl this afternoon, hoping to hang a first loss on the unbeaten and 12th-ranked Whitworth Pirates.

Sulages, who was promoted to head coach following an abbreviated 2005 season that saw the Pioneers cancel the Northwestern Conference portion of their schedule because of a lack of healthy players, claims his team remains upbeat despite its 0-4 start.

“Not at all,” he said, when asked about a possible hangover from last fall, when the Pioneers were outscored 198-76 in the four non-conference games they lost prior to putting away the footballs. “We’ve got a bunch of guys who are ready to play.

“They’re football players with a great attitude and lot of confidence that they can go out and do their jobs.”

Lewis & Clark (0-4 overall, 0-1 in the NWC) is coming off a 38-28 loss to first-year conference member Menlo that Sulages hopes to use as a springboard.

“We played probably our best game of the year against Menlo,” he said. “We moved the ball and scored a lot of points.”

Whitworth (5-0, 1-0) should offer a much greater challenge.

The Pirates, after opening NWC play with a 19-7 road win over Pacific Lutheran last weekend, will be celebrating homecoming, and 12th-year head coach John Tully is expecting a huge Pine Bowl turnout.

“We may have the biggest crowd since I’ve been here,” he said. “Homecoming is a big-time event around here. I’ve had alumni walking by and stopping in my office all week.”

The excitement surrounding homecoming week will undoubtedly help motivate the Pirates against a Pioneers team that comes in as huge underdog. But Tully is convinced his team would have been ready, no matter what.

“We’ve had no problem with motivation,” he said. “Each week our focus is on how we can improve, regardless of who we’re playing, and our guys have worked diligently this week to get prepared to play Lewis & Clark.”

Pioneers quarterback A.J. Brown has completed 85 of 154 passes for 847 yards and four touchdowns this fall, but he has been picked off eight times. Whitworth has allowed only seven TDs this fall and is giving up an average of just 10.6 points per game.

Tully said neither injured running back Chris Ahsing (ankle) nor center Jon Erlenmeyer (knee) will play today.