Sam Houston ended their Division II regular season Saturday night with a 22-1 routing of Stephen F Austin, giving them a perfect division record of 5-0.  Overall, the Bearkats head in to tomorrow’s Lone Star Alliance Championship Game with a 9-2 record.

Stephen F Austin came to Huntsville but the Lumberjacks were just not ready as the Bearkats awaited them in their “DEN.”  One hour before game time and SFA only had 7 players… 20 minutes and counting, a few more trickled in.  By game time, SFA had about 13 players, enough for three subs.  You just can’t come to Pritchett Field short-handed to play Sam Houston, especially when such a huge rivalry is on the line.

It’s 12 midnight and Coach Fritts advised us he just got home as I-45 south was closed.  We’ll get more of the victory over SFA tomorrow after the Championship game.

Sam Houston (5-0) vs Centenary College (4-1)

Pritchett Field – 3pm

The rescheduled game of the rescheduled game… vs SFA, is finally here!  Saturday night at 6:30pm in Pritchett Field.  This is the final regular season game and “IF” all goes well, Sam Houston will be 5-0 in divisional play and face Centenary College on Sunday for the Division II, Lone Star Alliance title.  To put the weekend in perspective and divisional play, the KATS have outscored their division opponents 78-1.  Centenary recorded the lone goal back on February 27th.  SFA lost a barn-burner of a game at Centenary (21-19) last month.

Does that make the Sam Houston – Stephen F Austin game an easy win?  “Not by any means” says Coach Fritts.  “You have to understand the history of our two schools.  Not just lacrosse but in football, basketball, baseball… any sport, any organization, it just doesn’t matter who is UP or who is down.  The score always starts out 0-0 and there is too much rivalry to get caught up in records when we play.”

Undefeated season is surprisingly not new to Fritts as his 1984 team swept the division with a perfect 10-0 mark.  “Those were some games back then!  We played everyone in our division (A&M, Tulane, Rice, LSU, U of H) twice (home/away) and beat them all both times.  LSU, U of H,  and Rice were the only games with large margins.  A&M, Tulane along with Texas and TCU, were never separated by more than 5 goals. ”

SFA game is Saturday night at 6:30pm in Pritchett Field.  The DII Championship game is Sunday at 3:00pm, also in Pritchett.

After a 21-0 dismantling of UT San Antonio and the fourth division game that went to a “Running Time” format in the second half, is it any wonder why Coach Fritts is taking the team up to MCLA Div I a year early?   Fritts said “The original plan was to move up for the 2012 season. We’ve been fortunate from the funding side with some tremendous alum and just as fortunate to attract some very good talent. We have 5-6 guys showing up on the national scoring list and a defense that is very much responsible for the success of the offense.”

It was 8-0 at the end of the 1st quarter with UTSA and 16-0 at the end of the first half.  “My players hate running time” says Fritts.  “It’s frustrating for them to travel so far and then end up playing about half of a real game.  But, as the adult here, I have to think about what the other team is feeling.  I’ve been on the end of blowouts worse than this UTSA game and no one offered to go running time back then.  Not only is it demoralizing for the losing team but things usually start to get cheap as they’d rather hurt you than properly play and defend you.”

Scorers for Sam Houston:

Sam Lockett (2g); Nick Williams (2g); Wil Nielsen (2g/4a); Brendan Gawronski (4g); Austin Atwood (1g/1a); John Messer (1g); Logan Holmes (5g); Donny Meyers (1g); Forrest Schmidt (1a); Zach Fry (3g/3a)

Final regular season game is this Tuesday (April 20) at Pritchett Field against rival SFA!!!  Game time is 6pm! Come support your Bearkats as they seek to close out their division schedule UNDEFEATED!