District College Football Preview for Saturday, December 5th

By: HSSN Staff
Wednesday, December 2, 2015 | 5:39 PM

And then there was one. Slippery Rock remains as the only district college football team playing in the month of December. The Rock is looking to advance to the national semifinal next weekend.

Here is the game preview, a recap will be posted on Saturday evening:

NCAA Division II Football Playoffs/Super Region 1 Championship
Slippery Rock (12-1) at Shepherd (11-0)   Noon
The second seed in the region travels to the top seed to determine who advances to the national semifinals next week. The PSAC champions are ranked 10th in the last national poll while the Rams are ranked 5th.

Slippery Rock advanced with wins over Bowie State 40-21 and Assumption 41-39 to move on to the national quarterfinals for the first time since 1998.

Last week, the Rock led 20-2 after one quarter but had to hold on for the win. Shamar Greene(West Mifflin) ran 31 times for 160 yards and Titus Howard(Clairton) sealed the win with an interception in the waning seconds.

Slippery Rock is averaging 47 points per game, with the offense scoring 45 rushing touchdowns. The Rock has got out to early leads, outscoring the opposition 151-66 in the first quarter.

Greene leads the rushing attack at 1,476 yards, he has 15 touchdowns. Isiah Neely(OLSH) has added 619 yards.

Dante Nania(Hempfield) needs 132 passing yards to hit 3 thousand for the season. Nania has tossed 30 touchdowns with only 10 interceptions.

The Rock has a trio of talented receivers. Cornelius Raye(Allderdice) leads with 54 catches, 8 for touchdowns. Jaimire Dutreiuille(Woodland Hills) has  40 and Marcus Carter(New Castle) adds 35. Dutrieuille is also averaging 23 yards per punt return.

Punter Andrew Huska has had to do double duty with the kicking chores after Mike Wainauskis went down for the season. Huska has made 46 extra points and converted 3 of 4 field goal attempts, he is also averaging 40 yards per punt.

Howard, Derrick Fulmore(West Mifflin) and Deonte Flemings each have 4 interceptions to lead the defense.  Teven Williams has 91 tackles while PSAC West Defensive Athlete of the Year Marcus Martin has 13.5 sacks. 

Shepherd received a bye and then defeated IUP 17-14 last week on Jeff Ziemba’s 28 yard touchdown pass to Billy Brown with just over 2 minutes to play. The Rams are the Mountain East champions and are averaging 41 points per game.

Ziemba was named as a finalist for the Harlon Hill Award, given to the top player in Division II. He has thrown for 3,017 yards with 30 touchdowns and just 3 interceptions. Brown has 72 catches but only 6 td’s.

Allen Cross has ran for 750 yards and 6 touchdowns Jabre Lolly has 14 scores on the year.
The winner meets the Grand Valley State at Cal-Pueblo Super Region 4 winner next weekend.