Bulldogs look to shut down Outlaws

The North Bay Bulldogs will try to accomplish something Saturday that only one other team in the NFC has been able to do; they will try and defeat the first place Tri City Outlaws. For the second consecutive week the Bulldogs will take on the league's top team, and to make things just a little bit tougher, Tri City boasts one of the league's best offences. Averaging 32 points a game, the Outlaws have a trio of players that can make life difficult for the Bulldogs defence. North Bay head coach Marc Mathon knows that once again the key to victory will be to shut down the big three of their opponents.

“They are a talented group of players,” said Mathon in regards to the Outlaws offensive leaders.

“Nosal (Jeff), Forde (Ian), and Nedeljkovic (Jon) are all extremely tough to stop. The defence is going to have to come up big again this week. Last week the big three for the Raiders were virtually shut down, yes they got in on the scoring, but they did not control the game. We need another performance like that.”

The big three for the Outlaws were second, third, and fourth and league scoring after week five.

Not only do the Bulldogs need to worry about their opponent, but after an emotional victory last week they must also worry about a letdown. With the energy used in the Raiders game it would be easy for the Bulldogs to lose focus for this contest; however Mathon is not worried about his team one bit.

“We tell them they just need to work harder then they did last week,” said Mathon as he watched the team prepare for a Friday practice.

“They need to know that every team is improving after each game, and if we want to stay competitive we need to improve after each game. Winning last week was great and it sent that message to the rest of the league, so now we have to make sure we are prepared every week because no one is going to take us lightly.”

Although the Bulldogs have won three straight games, they are still sitting in seventh place in league standings. It would be hard for them not to think about what could have been as most thought that they would have started the season with two wins instead of losses. Mathon feels that although it would be great to be undefeated right now, the early defeats were helpful in getting the team where they are now.

“Sometimes wins can come to easy. Those two losses early on were a wake up call to the guys. It let the guys know that wins were not just going to happen for us. Made us realize that we are going to have to work hard every week and earn are victories. We have won three in a row now and have earned each of those wins, this week we obviously look to make it four,” said Mathon.

When asked about the importance of this weeks’ game, without hesitation Mathon responded, “It’s the most important game of the year.”

The Bulldogs Football Club will play host to the Tri City Outlaws on Saturday, July 14, 2007 at Rollie Fischer Football Field in North Bay.

The Bulldogs will have a memorial tribute to Kenney J. Sullivan, a former North Bay Senior Football player. The Bulldogs would also like to extend an invitation to all North Bay Roughrider, Ti-Cat, Northmen & Bulldog alumni to attend this Saturday's contest as the Bulldogs will celebrate Senior Football alumni in the area. The kick off is at 7:00 p.m.