Braves seek 1st win at Glenville State

GLENVILLE, W.Va. — Through three games, the UNC Pembroke football team has come up empty so far in the 2024 season.

As they head to West Virginia for the second straight week, they’ll look to change that Saturday when the Braves face Glenville State. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m.

“It’s going to be a game we need to try to play well,” UNCP coach Mark Hall said. “Glenville’s got a lot of guys back from last year’s team, and they won their last game against Fairmont (State) in a rivalry game, and they’ve had a couple of extra days of prep for us because they played on a Thursday night, so just looking to get our first win of the season.”

The Braves were able to safely travel to Glenville on Friday, driving through some rain from Hurricane Helene but staying north and east of the areas of the North Carolina mountains most affected by the storm.

UNCP (0-3, 0-1 Mountain East Conference) lost its league opener 58-36 last week at Charleston, dropping its third straight after close nonconference losses to Wingate and Fayetteville State. The Braves are 0-3 for first time in the program’s 18-year history.

“It’s obviously a challenge,” Hall said. “First time in my career as a head coach being 0-3, so it’s kind of new territory for me. We’ve got a lot of football left; there’s still 75% of our season left, we’ve got eight games, and I think we’ve just got to get our first one to get that winning feeling in the building.”

Glenville State (1-2, 1-0 MEC) earned its first win of the season by beating Fairmont State on the road in a Thursday night game last week. The Pioneers lost 38-7 to Emory & Henry on Aug. 31 and 31-9 to Lock Haven on Sept. 7 in nonconference play.

The Pioneers are averaging 11.0 points and 256.0 yards per game offensively. Anthony Garrett has completed just 41.9% of his passes, gaining 420 yards through the air thus far this season with four passing touchdowns against seven interceptions. Tariq Miller is his leading target with 151 receiving yards and three touchdowns.

Glenville State has yet to score a rushing touchdown this season; Markquan Rucker (168 rushing yards) is the team’s only 100-yard rusher for the season.

The Braves will look to continue the Pioneers’ offensive struggles while also looking to rebound from last week when they allowed 58 points and 569 total yards at Charleston.

“Obviously we played pretty bad last week against Charleston, and we’ve just tried to figure out internally,” Hall said. “It really doesn’t matter what Glenville does or doesn’t do if we don’t tackle and we don’t run to the football, and we don’t do the things we’ve got to do to play good defense, which we’ve done in the past. The last two games haven’t been up to standard, so we’ve challenged those guys and we’ll see how they respond.”

Defensive back Shaun Sterling leads Glenville State’s defense with 23 tackles and two interceptions; Jamair Diaz has been the team’s leading threat up front, with 3.5 sacks and 4.5 tackles for loss.

The Braves played decently well on offense in their last two games, scoring 31 against Fayetteville State and 36 against Charleston, but look to limit some of the mistakes that hurt the team’s overall chances in those games.

“I think our biggest thing offensively is just finding consistency,” Hall said. “I think last week’s game was really a microcosm of our first three games; obviously, we scored 36 points, but especially in the first half, we were playing really well, and when we didn’t score it was 100% mistakes on our own. And then the second half it got away from us and we had a couple of costly turnovers. But I think we’ve shown signs the last two games, and now we’re really fighting to just see if we can play four quarters rather than half the game.”

UNCP leads the all-time series 5-1; after Glenville State’s only win in 2022, a 45-17 win in West Virginia, the Braves beat the Pioneers 49-0 last year in Pembroke.