WEST VIRGINIA CONFERENCE FOOTBALL

Two plays have separated the University of Charleston from a perfect football season. And those two plays - a failure to stop West Liberty on a fourth-and-four in overtime Oct. 24 and a blocked field goal on the game's final play against Glenville Saturday - have subjected the Golden Eagles to both heartbreak and renewed hope. After they lost 14-12 to the Pioneers Saturday, their chances for qualifying for the 24-team NCAA Division II playoffs seemed to vanish. But events in Pennsylvania on Saturday and Monday's release of the regional rankings have added chaos and uncertainty to the postseason situation and may work in the Golden Eagles' favor. "UC's chances took a serious hit,'' said West Virginia Conference associate commissioner Will Prewitt, "but there are so many people getting beat, it's going to be a mad scramble.'' Two teams positioned ahead of UC in last week's Super Region I rankings - No. 3 Bloomsburg and No. 6 Edinboro - both suffered their second losses of the season. UC entered Saturday's game ranked No. 7 and fell only to No. 8 in this week's rankings. Bloomsburg slipped to No. 5 and Edinboro to No. 7. Two other regionally ranked teams, No. 2 California and No. 3 Shippensburg, face each other on Saturday. The top six teams in the region qualify for the postseason. UC (8-2, 5-2) concludes the regular season at home against West Virginia Wesleyan (2-7, 2-5) at 1 p.m. Saturday. A few minutes after the Golden Eagles' difficult loss Saturday, UC linebacker Joey Lindamood of Parkersburg, a senior co-captain, addressed the team on the field and encouraged his mates to keep the faith. "I told 'em we had a week left, and we never know what's going to happen,'' said Lindamood. "We might still make playoffs, so we have to come out and play the best we can.'' Said UC coach Tony DeMeo, "We have an outside chance. So right now we just have to play for a ninth victory.'' Unfortunately for the Golden Eagles, the razor-thin margin of their losses to the Hilltoppers and Pioneers probably will do them no good in the mathematical formula used to determine the rankings, which allow for little or no subjectivity. "In the math that the committee looks at, the margin of victory is not really a component,'' said Prewitt. "To a certain extent, a loss is a loss is a loss.'' --- The six-team regional playoffs begin Nov. 14 at campus sites. The top two teams earn first-round byes, and the two first-round games match the Nos. 3 and 6 seeds and the Nos. 4 and 5 seeds. The semifinals will follow on Nov. 21 and the championship on Nov. 28, setting up the national semifinals for the four regional winners. West Liberty (9-1, 7-0), which is No. 1 in the region, probably will earn a first-round bye and homefield advantage if the Hilltoppers can defeat Concord Saturday. Super Region I consists of the West Virginia Conference, the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and the Northeast 10. In this week's American Football Coaches Association poll, UC dropped from No. 18 to 25, and West Liberty moved up from No. 11 to 10. --- BRIEFLY: Glenville will play host to Shepherd in a nationally televised game at 8 p.m. Thursday on CBS College Sports Network (317 Suddenlink). The game will not earn money for the schools or the conference but, unlike many small- college football telecasts, it will not cost them anything. "In many non-Division I-A games that are televised, the institutions pick up the tab on those telecasts,'' said Prewitt. The telecast is part of CBS's policy of working with all Division II conferences. "Division II has a television package with CBS College Sports, and every conference is guaranteed games,'' said Prewitt, "and we submitted a list of what would be considered big games in our conference, and that was the one that was selected.'' ... Unlike most Glenville-Shepherd games, however, Thursday's clash will have no bearing on the WVC championship. In fact, it will be just the fourth time in the last 18 years that the Glenville-Shepherd winner did not pick up at least a share of the conference title. The Pioneers and Rams are 5-2 in WVC play. Reach Mike Whiteford at 304-348-7948 or mikewhiteford@wvgazette.com