High hopes for Golden Rams in 2019

As season opener nears, Zwaan, WCU know they’ll be a target in 2019

WEST GOSHEN >> It was, probably, the most disappointing end to a great season in West Chester’s lengthy football history.

The elation of being the first WCU team to capture the outright PSAC Championship in 47 years gave way to deep despair just a week later when the Golden Rams suffered a home setback to New Haven (Conn.) in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Division II Playoffs.

“I don’t want to say the year was disappointing — just the ending,” said West Chester head coach Bill Zwaan.

The 2019 season opener is now two weeks away — Sept. 7th versus Bentley (Mass.) at Farrell Stadium — and Zwaan wants his players to use the disappointing end to the last campaign as motivation. But he also doesn’t want his squad obsessing about it either.

“We’ve talked about how we didn’t finish the season the way we wanted to finish,” Zwaan said. “We had such a great season, and then to walk away without much to say for it was disappointing. That did give us a bunch of motivation coming into this season.

“But we’ve tried to put last season in the rear window. We are looking forward – 2018 is over and it means nothing for 2019. We want this group to establish themselves. This is a completely different team and new season.”

The Rams are coming off a 10-1 season and have won three of the last four PSAC East titles. West Chester has not dropped more than one division contest in a single season since 2012, and was picked to win it again in a coach’s vote earlier this month.

“We always have three goals: to win the PSAC East, the PSAC Conference and win a national title,” said starting senior quarterback Paul Dooley. “We got two of the three and now we want to complete all three of our goals.”

MEDIANEWS GROUP FILE West Chester coach Bill Zwaan knows his team will be the hunted this season after winning the PSAC title last year.