Bridgewater State Football Team Makes MASCAC Debut Friday Night

By Jim Fenton, The Enterprise (Brockton)

BRIDGEWATER, Mass. -- After playing in the New England Football Conference since 1965, Bridgewater State University begins a new chapter tonight.

The Bears have shifted to the nine-team Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference and will make their debut against Worcester State University at Swenson Field at 7 p.m.

The BSU-Worcester State game is the first in MASCAC history with three other games taking place on Saturday afternoon.

BSU, Worcester State, Fitchburg State, Westfield State, Framingham State and the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, who participate in other sports in the MASCAC, are joined by UMass-Dartmouth, Plymouth State and Western Connecticut in the new football conference.

“Since it is the first game, it’ll mean a lot,’’ said Bears coach Chuck Denune. “It’s something we’ll probably talk to the players specifically about. It’s definitely one more smudge of motivation.’’

BSU, Maine Maritime and Curry College were charter members of the NEFC in ’65 and the conference grew to 16 teams before the MASCAC schools decided to form their own league.

“It seems to be a good thing and it seems like it’ll be highly competitive,’’ said Denune. “You look at how the conference fared last week against out-of-conference teams (going 6-1) and it shows how good the teams are.

“You’ve got some familiar faces and teams that haven’t been on our schedule in the conference. There is new blood that can shake things up and rivalry games.’’

The Bears (1-1) play their first MASCAC game against a Worcester State team that is 2-0 with wins over Anna Maria College and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

The Lancers, who have lost eight in a row to BSU, were led on defense against WPI by senior linebacker Adam Straughn of Rockland. He made 12 tackles, recovered a fumble and blocked an extra point.

Straughn was selected the ECAC Northeast Div. 3 and the MASCAC defensive player of the week and made the D3football.com team of the week. Straughn was third on the team last season with 57 tackles and blocked four kicks.

Junior quarterback Kevin Bumpus of Bridgewater led Worcester State to its opening win over Anna Maria, throwing for a school-record 427 yards and four touchdowns. He was injured in the second quarter against WPI after going 10-for-21 for 103 yards and is listed as the backup on Worcester State’s depth chart this week.

BSU rebounded from a lopsided opening-day loss at Salve Regina to defeat William Paterson, 41-24, last Saturday. It was a definite step in the right direction after the Bears did little right against Salve Regina.

“I don’t want to get too excited because we couldn’t have played much worse than we did against Salve Regina,’’ said Denune. “Now we have to put two games together back-to-back and play at our level.’’

Tonight’s game marks the third time BSU will be playing at home under the lights. The Bears lost to Westfield State, 10-7, in 2011 and to Framingham State, 16-0, a year ago this weekend.

“We’ve got to get that curse kicked,’’ said Denune.