Nov 10, 2017 3 min read

Brent Blacharczyk believes he knows what sparked Waynesburg University’s two-game winning streak.

And it had nothing to do with anything that happened on the field.

“It was the bye week,” said Blacharczyk, a senior defensive end from McGuffey High School. “It was the best thing to happen to me. I was playing at 100 percent and that hadn’t happened for a while.”

Blacharczyk and the rest of the Yellow Jackets will see how much of an impact it has against rival Washington & Jefferson at 1 p.m., today at Cameron Stadium.

“We had a huge turnaround after the bye week,” said Blacharczyk of the wins that snapped a seven-game losing streak. “Our coaches have done a good job game-planning and everyone is playing hard, giving 110 percent.”

For the record

The last thing Mike Sirianni wants to talk about are records.

Especially when they have yet to be achieved.

But the W&J head coach is one win away from becoming the career victory leader at the school, passing the legendary John Luckhardt.

The two coaches each have 137 victories.

Luckhardt had the remarkable accomplishment of being the winningest coach at two college programs in the same county. He was 137-37-2 in 17 years at W&J and 88-33 in 10 seasons at California. Sirianni is 137-30 in 15 seasons, all at W&J.

Defending the line

One of the keys to W&J’s 9-0 record is the extraordinary play of the defense.

Not only is the Presidents’ defense winning the turnover battle, they are keeping opponents out of the end zone. W&J is plus-10 in the turnover ratio and has held teams to 30 points or fewer in six of the nine wins.

“Every team likes to look at us as their championship game,” said senior defensive end Tom Marra. “We haven’t had a 10-0 team here for a while. We’re all striving for it because we have (44) seniors on this team.”

The Presidents are in the top four in most defensive categories of the conference and have two returns for a touchdown.

“We’re very confident,” said W&J defensive back Luke Merhaut. “We have a lot of seniors on our defense and we have a lot of experience on our defense. We’re all really good friends and we play well together. If we can keep up the energy and everyone who is healthy stays healthy, we can continue to do what we’re doing.”

Notes

W&J leads the series 40-4 and is on a two-game winning streak. … The Presidents are looking for a 13th undefeated regular season. The most recent was in 2007. … Waynesburg linebacker John-Glenn Davis averages 8.8 tackles, sixth best in the PAC. … W&J is chasing its 25th PAC title and 25th playoff appearance. Only Mount Union has more in Division III with 28.