Drake and William Penn ready to play under the lights

It will be a special night in Drake Stadium on Saturday when the Bulldogs open their home season against William Penn. It will be the stadium’s first night game since 1960 and one of the trucks used by Iowa-based Musco Lighting to illuminate the field was used in the cleanup effort at “ground zero” in the wake of the nine-11 attacks. Drake coach Rob Ash says it will be a special and historic night that should be a great exciting game too. The Bulldogs narrowly missed a big upset in their season opener. They lost at Southwest Missouri State 31-26. He says their defense showed they’re going to be aggressive and attacking, the passing game and kicking game looked good. He says they found they still need work on the running game though. Ash says the extra couple of days off since their last game will be a benefit them as the Southwest game was hard hitting. William Penn is 1-1 after a 38-7 victory over Taylor University last weekend. Penn coach Todd Haffner says they improved each week, but still need to improve more. He says through two weeks the defense has been impressive. He says they’re doing a good job of running to the ball, but he says they’d still like to see them run a little harder at times.Haffner says the Statesmen see this as a big opportunity and says they’ll come out ready to play.