This may be the 100th year of football at Lenoir-Rhyne, but you'd be hard-pressed to find another regular season contest in LR history as big as Saturday's matchup with Wingate. Each team comes into the weekend with a perfect 8-0 record and have hopes of bringing home a South Atlantic Conference Championship. On top of that, the game was selected as the Division II Showcase Game to be streamed on ESPN3.
Each of the last three matchups between the two teams have been decided by single-digits, including a pair of LR wins last year. The Bears beat Wingate on the road during the regular season by a final score of 31-24. LR had a 31-7 lead in the third quarter and survived a Wingate comeback attempt thanks to a goal-line stand in the fourth quarter.
A fourth-quarter play proved to be the difference in the second matchup as well. In the second round of the NCAA Playoffs, LR trailed 17-14 with 45 seconds left when Head Coach
Drew Cronic reached into his bag of tricks. Cronic called for a double-reverse flea-flicker and
Grayson Willingham connected with
Riley McGee who juggled the ball but gained possession before he landed in the end zone to give LR the victory.
Lenoir-Rhyne is looking to become the first back-to-back SAC Champions since the Bears accomplished the feat in 2013-14. The Bears also have a shot of becoming the first team to go undefeated in the conference in back-to-back years since they did in that same two-year stretch. Wingate is seeking its second league championship in three years and the third in program history. LR has the second-most championships in the conference with eight, trailing Carson-Newman.
These two programs are head-and-shoulders above the rest in the league. LR is outscoring league opponents by 225 points (37.5 points per game) and Wingate is beating SAC teams by 131 points (26.2 points per game).
A victory on Saturday would also give LR its most wins in a decade. The Bears also had 78 wins in the '50s but a victory over Wingate would give LR 79 from 2010 until now.
Dating back to 2016, Wingate owns a 21-5 record in the league. Domineke McNeill comes into the weekend as the league leader in rushing yards at 701 and fourth in the league with six touchdowns. The Bears have allowed just one 100-yard rusher all season and it came in the Bears most recent game, a 28-20 victory over Limestone.
In a series that dates back to 1986, the Bears are 10-7 against the Bulldogs all-time at Moretz Stadium.
