BELTON - Two days after his team’s 41-14 loss at Wisconsin-Whitewater, Mary Hardin-Baylor coach Pete Fredenburg said he had a simple message for his team.

“I told them, ‘You can react to this one of two ways,’” Fredenburg said Monday during his weekly press conference. “‘You can start pointing fingers and complaining and blaming it on people, or you can bow your neck, go to work and turn the negatives into positives.’ That’s what we hope to do.”

There is certainly precedence for that.

The only other time in the last nine seasons that UMHB lost a game by 27 points, its just so happens the Boston Red Sox won the World Series and the Crusaders advanced to the NCAA Division III national championship game.

The Red Sox held up their end of the bargain Sunday night, and now Fredenburg hopes his team can do the same.

“We’ve obviously experienced losses before,” he said. “As disappointed as we were Saturday in the fact that we didn’t perform well in a playoff atmosphere, the good thing is that we’re not having to stack up our equipment.

“We have two games left, and then hopefully the playoffs, so we can learn from Saturday’s game.”

UMHB (7-1, 6-0 American Southwest Conference) - which slipped from No. 2 to No. 6 in the d3football.com poll and should see a similar dip when the American Football Coaches Association poll is released today - can clinch its fifth ASC title in the last six years and sixth playoff appearance in the last seven seasons with a win Saturday at home against East Texas Baptist (5-4, 5-2).

But to do that, the Crusaders will need to play with greater intensity than they did against the Warhawks (7-1), who moved up from No. 3 to No. 2.

“We got out-efforted,” Fredenburg said. “Whitewater played at a fever pitch and we didn’t. You have to do that when you’re in a playoff atmosphere. The good thing is that we know we can play at a higher intensity, and I fully expect that to be the case.

“The leadership and the quality of our youngsters has been challenged, and we’ll see what we’re all made of. I certainly think we’ll see a much greater effort on the field Saturday.”

Grounded

Of all its miscues, UMHB was hurt the most Saturday by its turnovers - two fumbles and three interceptions, two of which were returned for scores and another that set up a short touchdown.

Senior quarterback Josh Welch was 4-of-10 for 28 yards with two interceptions in the first half as UW-W built a 28-0 lead by intermission.

“I personally think Josh forced the ball into some situations where he should have made a better decision,” Fredenburg said. “And he knows that.”

Welch’s final numbers were 12-of-29 for 113 yards with three picks. His 29 attempts were a personal single-game record, breaking his mark of 27 set last season in a 7-3 loss to the Warhawks.

In the minutes following Saturday’s game, Fredenburg admitted that his team isn’t good at playing catch-up. The numbers back up his statement. In 10 seasons, Crusaders starting quarterbacks have attempted 22 or more passes in 11 games - all losses.

Around the ASC

This week’s matchup with UMHB will be the regular-season finale for ETBU, which is coming off a 45-21 loss to Mississippi College (6-2, 4-2).

In this week’s other ASC games, Howard Payne (1-7, 1-5) visits Mississippi, Louisiana College (3-5, 2-4) hosts Sul Ross State (5-3, 3-3), and Texas Lutheran (2-6, 2-4) travels to face Hardin-Simmons (4-4, 4-2).

Looking ahead

Thanks to Trinity’s last-play heroics - in which it lateralled the ball 15 times during a play that lasted 62 seconds and resulted in a game-winning touchdown against Millsaps (Miss.) - the Tigers control their playoff destiny in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference.

If both teams take care of business in the final two weeks of the regular season, a likely first-round playoff clash could be Trinity at UMHB.

The teams have met four times in the postseason’s first round, all in San Antonio. Trinity won in 2001 and ’02. UMHB won in ’04 and ’05.

edrennan@temple-telegram.com