West Chester Hosts Seton Hill, Looking For First Win

By Matt Leon

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The West Chester Golden Rams have gotten off to an 0-2 start here in 2015. They will try to get that zero out of the win column on Saturday when they welcome Seton Hill University to town.

The Division II Golden Rams let one slip away last week as they fell on the road at Mercyhurst, 37-35. West Chester led for the vast majority of the game, but the final couple minutes of the game saw Mercyhurst score what proved to be the winning touchdown, West Chester have a potential game-tying return of a botched two-point conversion wiped out by penalty and the Golden Rams miss a potential game winning field goal at the gun.

West Chester head coach Bill Zwaan says a lot of things he had concerns about coming into the season bubbled to the surface against the Lakers.

"It was really frustrating," Zwaan tells KYW Newsradio. "We're inexperienced and so we make some foolish mistakes down the stretch. Actually, those mistakes were made by older kids, which hurt. And then of course our kicking game which we had been concerned about. Both our punter, with a bad punt late, and our field goal kicker not making the field goal at the end. Things I'm concerned about going in (to the season), show up. Especially when you're playing a good team, it's going to be a close game, so you need those young guys to step up, and in some cases were not quite ready for that yet."

Listen to the entire interview with West Chester's Bill Zwaan:

There was some really good news for West Chester this week with the return of senior tight end Tim Brown. Brown missed the first two games of the season because of an NCAA eligibility issue, but he is back and will play against Seton Hill. Zwaan says it's a huge addition.

"It's going to help our young quarterback (sophomore Pat Moriarty) because you've got really a first team All-American player," Zwaan says. "He's a special kid. In our league he's one of the best players in the league. So either you've got to add extra guys into coverage to stop him, which now will open up other guys or he's going to get matched up to where he can get open. And he makes plays. He makes the tough catch for you and he gets the ball into the end zone (17 touchdown catches last season)."

Seton Hill has struggled the last several years, but they are showing signs of turning things around under former Widener head coach Isaac Collins. The Griffins are 1-1 this season after beating Lock Haven last week.

"They have a lot of good athletes," Zwaan says. "I mean they've got players who can run, they've got good size. They're a good looking football team. They've been taking some time trying to get it all meshed together, but they've got some good players on that team and they've done a good job recruiting. So we've got to be really well aware of that. Obviously, when you have good players, any one of those guys can make a play at any time."

Last season West Chester beat Seton Hill, 45-10.

Saturday's game will kickoff at 1:00pm.

You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.