By Duane Cochran
FAIRMONT — Good thing second-year Seton Hill University head football coach Joel Dolinski has a great sense of humor.
Because he’s certainly needed it this fall.
After guiding the Griffins to a 10-3 overall record, a second-place finish in the West Virginia Conference and the school’s first-ever NCAA Division II playoff appearance and victory in its brief history in the sport last fall, 2009 has been – to put it bluntly – a nightmare for Dolinski and 1-7 Seton Hill.
The Griffins expected to have 12 total starters returning at the beginning of the season, including seven on offense. And things started off promising when Seton Hill opened the 2009 season with a 34-27 victory over Virginia-Wise, the 21st ranked team in the country in NAIA.
However after that win things went downhill in a hurry for the Griffins, who have been plagued by a rash of injuries and enter Saturday’s 3 p.m. home game at Offutt Field with visiting Fairmont State University in the midst of a seven-game losing streak.
“We lost a great group of leaders from last year’s team and this year it just seems like we have been a bit snake-bitten, especially with injuries,” said Dolinski. “At first the injury report was coming to me with a table of contents. Now it’s coming to me in volumes.
“We’ve just had a plethora of injuries this fall and that was something we were able to avoid last year. I’m not kidding when I say it takes me about three hours to go over our injury report.”
Despite the fact that leading rusher Antwarn Jones (ankle), who has 526 yards and two touchdowns on 128 carries and leading receivers Sammy Tranks (ankle and knee), who has 28 catches for 438 yards and four scores and Tyler Roby (broken thumb), who has 26 catches for 350 yards and six TDs, have all been slowed by injuries, Seton Hill’s offense has been tough to stop this fall.
The Griffins, led by talented sophomore quarterback D.J. Lenehan a transfer from Toledo, are averaging 29.9 points per game and are ranked 15th in the nation in total offense (440.1 yards per game) and 16th in the country in passing (287.0) Lenehan has completed 121-of-242 passes for 1,832 yards and 19 touchdowns. His TD total ranks second in the league. He, however, has also thrown 10 interceptions.
Lenehan finished his high school career as the second-leading passer in Pennsylvania history with 7,765 yards. He also led Wilson Area to the 2006 Class AA state title with a win over Terrelle Pryor’s Jeannette Jayhawks in the title game.
In losses the past two weeks to nationally-ranked Charleston and Concord, Lenehan has thrown for 925 yards and eight touchdowns.
“They’ve got a lot of talent on offense and Lenehan is without a doubt one of the best quarterbacks we’ll face all season,” said FSU coach Mike Lopez. “He’s a big, 6-3 kid who has excellent mechanics and is very good in the pocket. He also runs very well, is very hard to sack and he makes excellent decisions with the football. He also has a very live arm.”
Lenehan also does an excellent job of spreading the football around. The Griffins have six different players with 15 or more receptions.
Stopping opponents, though, has been an issue all season for Seton Hill. In five of the Griffins’ seven losses they’ve allowed 40 or more points and in their past two outings they gave up 59 points to the University of Charleston and 52 to Concord.
“That’s been a major issue for us,” said Dolinski. “We knew coming into the season we were going to be vulnerable in the secondary because we had three true freshmen starting back there. We’ve also suffered some key injuries on defense in a number of areas which has made us even more younger and more thin and that’s not been a good thing. When you’re young you tend to make more mistakes and we’ve made several of those this season. The guys are trying, but it’s been a real learning experience for us.”
Seton Hill and Fairmont State have met just twice on the football field. The Falcons claimed a come-from-behind 47-20 victory in 2007 at Offutt Field. Last fall in Fairmont, Darnell Jones’ one-yard touchdown run with 20 seconds remaining gave the Griffins a wild 41-38 come-from-behind victory over FSU.
