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DAVENPORT, Iowa — The football season hasn’t even started for the St. Ambrose Fighting Bees and the season is already starting to look promising. The National Association of Intercollegiate of Athletics announced its Top 25 Preseason Poll on Tuesday, just weeks after NAIAFootball.net released its Top 25 Preseason Poll. Both polls have the Fighting Bees in the Top 10 in the nation. In the first of 11 NAIA weekly polls, the Fighting Bees check in at No. 8. It is the highest ranking that the team has received since they were ranked fifth in the 2002 season. The Fighting Bees started 2-0 to open the 2002 season before falling to Wisconsin-River Falls. The Top 10 ranking marks the third time in the past four seasons that the Fighting Bees have been ranked in the Top 10 in the preseason polls. Their highest ranking came in 2001 with the Fighting Bees ranked seventh. That ranking came after a 2000 Mid-States Football Association Midwest Division championship season where the Fighting Bees qualified for the NAIA National Playoffs where they advance to the quarterfinals. In the NAIAFootball.net Top 25 poll released earlier this month, the Fighting Bees were ranked sixth in the nation. They are also picked to win the MSFA Midwest division. The Fighting Bees are coming off one of the most thrilling seasons in team history. After starting the season at 3-3 and only “mathematically” alive to win their fourth straight MSFA Midwest title, the Fighting Bees pulled off a miraculous finish to end the season. Winners of their final four games to close the regular season and getting a lot of help around the division, the Fighting Bees capped the 2003 regular season in a five-way tie for the division, their fourth straight year atop the league. In their final game against rival McKendree College, the Fighting Bees went into Leemon Field in Lebanon, Ill., and knocked off the eighth ranked Bearcats 27-17. The Fighting Bees only had to wait a day to find out their playoff destiny. They made the 16-team field as the 16th team and had to travel to Olathe, Kan., to take on the fifth ranked, 12-0 MidAmerica Nazarene Pioneers. The Fighting Bees pulled off the upset of the season, knocking off the Pioneers 32-31 in double overtime on junior running back Joe Schimmel’s successful two-point conversion run. For the second time in four years, the Fighting Bees made it to the quarterfinals, only to fall just short of making it to the final four for the first time ever. There are two other MSFA Midwest teams who rank in the Top 25. Rival McKendree is 12th, while St. Xavier comes in at 18. Trinity International received 14 votes and ranks 29th while Olivet Nazarene received four votes and sits 35th. The complete NAIA Top 25 may also be viewed at http://www.naia.org/football/ratings/2004/pre.htmlReturn to the Football Homepage |
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518 West Locust
Street, Davenport, IA 52803 |
