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 Western Carolina hosts Furman on the gridiron at 6:00 pm on Saturday night in Cullowhee. |
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Sept. 23, 2009
Cullowhee, N.C. - Mountain Heritage Day, Western Carolina University's annual festival of mountain culture, will be held at an alternate location on campus this Saturday, Sept. 26, because of recent heavy rains in the area. Festival activities will take place along Memorial Drive and Killian Building Lane, which will be closed to traffic, and around adjacent university buildings, said festival Chairman Scott Philyaw.
The regular festival site, an intramural field located near the Cordelia Camp Building, is too wet to be used during the festival, Philyaw said.
Memorial Drive will be closed at its intersection with Norton Road, and Killian Building Lane will be closed at its intersection with Centennial Drive. About 130 arts and crafts vendors are scheduled to display their wares at the festival, and their booths will be located along Memorial Drive and Killian Building Lane, Philyaw said.
Because of the change in location, the Creek Lot will be available on Saturday for those who have been issued the green, Creek Lot parking pass. The lot was originally slated to be blocked off for vendor parking and staging for Mountain Heritage Day.
Western Carolina (0-3) hosts Southern Conference rival, Furman (2-1) at 6:00 pm at E.J. Whitmire Stadium / Bob Waters Field. The Catamounts trail in the all-time series, 10-24-2, and have lost 10 of the last 11 head-to-head meetings including three-straight overall. In the 17 games played in Cullowhee, WCU trails 5-11-1, last winning at home in 2005 when the Catamounts upset the second-ranked Paladins, 41-21.
WCU has posted an 11-9 overall record on Mountain Heritage Day all-time, but has dropped three-straight including the most recent meeting with 21st-ranked Georgia Southern back in 2006.
In last season's meeting with Furman, Western Carolina quarterback Zack Jaynes made the most of his first career start, passing for a career-high 302 yards and accounting for all three Catamount touchdowns, but could not overcome an early, 21-0, deficit as the rally fell a TD short, falling to the 20th-ranked Paladins, 28-21. Jaynes delivered TD strikes of 13 yards to Andrerius Thomas and 12 yards to Kyle Garland before plowing ahead for a four-yard scoring run in the losing effort.
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Western Carolina is coming off a 27-3 road loss at Georgia Southern a week ago which ran the Catamounts' skid to 15-straight against the Eagles and 0-10 all-time in Statesboro. Redshirt junior Marquel Pittman was a bright spot for the Western offense after securing 93 yards receiving on three catches - all in the first half - while senior defensive back Chris Collins amassed a career-high 14 tackles, matching his previous career-best of 12 in the first half.
Furman returns to Southern Conference play this weekend while continuing its current three-game road stretch. The Paladins, now 2-1 on the season following last Saturday's 52-12 road loss at 25th-ranked Missouri, opened its SoCon slate two weeks ago with a 38-20 road victory at Chattanooga ... the Paladins enter the game averaging 31.7 points scored and 410 yards per game, but are allowing opponents to score 31.0 on average with 423.7 yards per game.
For tickets, call the WCU athletics ticket office at 800-34-GOWCU or online at CatamountSports.com. The ticket booth at the Northwest entrance (between Gate 1 and 8) will open at 10:00 am for advanced ticket sales on Saturday morning, with gates officially opening one hour prior to kickoff at 5:00 pm.
Fans that can't make it to the game can watch it locally on WMYA-TV, My Network 40 out of Asheville with an air time of 5:30 pm (check local listings). The game will also be broadcast by the Catamount Sports Network with the 90-minute pregame show airing at 4:30 pm. Fans can listen locally on WWCU-FM, Power 90dot5 in Cullowhee; 680 AM WRGC in Sylva; 920 AM WPTL in Canton; 1480 AM WPFJ in Franklin; and 1600 AM WTZQ in Hendersonville, or online through Stretch Internet at CatamountSports.com.
Despite the change in location for Mountain Heritage Day, most festival activities will go on as planned. Activities will include two stages of traditional music and dance; old-fashioned mountain food; exhibitions of folk arts and skills; and demonstrations of Cherokee Indian ball (also known as "stickball"), shape-note singing, black powder shooting and an 18th-century hunters' camp.
The festival Circle Tent will offer historical presentations, children's activities, storytelling, and guitar and fiddle circles. Other items on the agenda include a 5K foot race and woodcutting contest.
WCU's Mountain Heritage Center will be open from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm to allow festival visitors to view its exhibits and displays. The museum is located on the ground floor of H.F. Robinson Administration Building at the entrance to the WCU campus.
Festival activities begin at 8:00 am and continue until 6:00 pm. Admission and parking at Mountain Heritage Day are free. Attendees are encouraged to bring lawn chairs. Pets are not allowed at the festival site, but service animals are welcome. For more information about Mountain Heritage Day, call (828) 227-3193.
Excerpt from on Tuesday's Southern Conference Head Football Coaches Teleconference:
WCU Head Coach Dennis Wagner:
On last week's road loss at Georgia Southern:
"We started off the game and drove the ball down the field. We got in the red zone twice and came away with no points. We turned the ball over both times. I really thought that took the wind out of sails offensively. We couldn't get anything going after that point. Defensively, I thought we were playing well except for third down, which has been our problem during these last three games. We've got to correct defensively on how we get off the field on third down."
"Offensively, we've just got to keep up momentum. We did a nice job moving the ball down the field and getting down there, but you've got to come away with points. If you get down there three times and only come only away with a field goal, it's not going to get it done. Furman is a well coached football team. They are really solid offensively by putting up some good numbers. Defensively, they do the same thing all the time. They aren't going to surprise you with anything magical. They line up and play football. They play hard."
On playing Furman at home on Saturday:
"It's great to be at home in front of our home crowd. We are not off to the start we wanted, but we are going to keeping working with the plan that we've got. Our kids just have to realize it takes 11 guys to make plays and right now we are playing nine-man football in a lot of plays on offense. We've got to get that corrected this week. Defensively, we've done a good job on first and second down. I just want to see us get off the field on third down. Furman is going to present a very challenging test for us. It'd be a great way to get back on track and get our first conference win."
On the health of the offensive line entering the Furman game:
"We are still not going to be completely healthy. We are still going to miss two guys. They just got to keep getting treatment and getting themselves better. We will see how the end of the week comes. Those young kids are getting a lot of playing time. They are getting better. We gave up a couple of sacks to Georgia Southern as they put a lot of pressure on us. We are just going to have to be smart in how we are throwing the football and how we protect Zack (Jaynes). We still believe that's a group that is going to get better every week. There is some 18 year olds that are playing football that maybe shouldn't be, but they are. They aren't rookies anymore. They played three games and we are going to get better."
On whether or not there will be changes to the lineup this week:
"I don't think it's about shakeups, it's about execution. It's about the plays that are called. For the experts out there that say there should be better play calls should be called, they should come and watch film. Then they would see that if the players executed the play that is called, we'd be successful."
"We've got to do a better job of coaching in getting them to execute correctly. You can't make mistakes in the red zone; you don't throw interceptions and you don't fumble the football. You hang on to the ball and throw it away if it's not there or wait for the next play. We could have been up 14-0 easily, which would have changed the momentum in the football game."
"Why should there be any shakeups. It's about execution. We will continue to play the players that we have. We have faith in those guys and we believe that we are going to get better. This week we will have to prove that against Furman. "
