Lindenwood University usually plays on artificial turf, and this weekend at Air Force they will play on grass, so for much of the last couple of weeks, the Lions have been practicing on a natural surface.

It’s one of those things you can do when the Athletic Director wants to help your team win. Coach JD Stephenson’s team knows that the ball rolls differently on grass, and even the cleats behave differently. Stephenson wanted his team to be ready.

“If there’s something that can help us perform 5% better, we’ll try it,” said Stephenson. “We know it will be tough.”

Lindenwood lost their final conference game to Davenport, but it was a game they learned from, as they’ve learned things in every loss. They also took some positives, not least of which was a passable scrum effort against a solid Davenport pack. The Lions will likely look to use their kicking game to make the field long for Air Force. They have good kickers throughout the backline and any one of them can hoof the ball downfield to gain territory.

But they also have an imposing and very speedy Zoomies team to deal with.

“Air Force is extremely fast,” said Lindenwood. “They play relentless defense. They are good with the ball, have a very good lineout, and a #9 who can make something out of nothing. We need to be very vigilant and we need to be smart about how we use territory.”

And they need to be smart about points. This is playoff rugby. Bonus points for scoring four tries aren’t applicable anymore. So they might go for posts a little more often, and so the pressure may well be on Lunaile Tshuma, who, when he’s on, can hit kicks from very far away. He needs to be accurate, but if he is, one wonders how far he can kick in the thin air of Colorado Springs. 

Coming off a 69-12 defeat of Colorado State, the boys, said Stephenson, “are flying. They want to make a statement. They want to set the tone.”

And they remember, also, getting thrashed by St. Mary’s in the semis last year. They don’t want that kind of collapse to happen again.