Lions heal over bye week, prepare for Southwestern Okla.

Bye weeks are good for resting and healing minor injuries.?On the flip side, the Texas A&M University-Commerce Lions hope the timing of this bye doesn’t disrupt the current momentum the football team has been riding for a month now.??”It all depends on the status of the rest of the season,” said Lions head coach Scotty Conley. “In an ideal world, if we were going to be a playoff team, it’d be pretty good to have a chance to have a break before getting into that. For us, just because of the grind, we have had some players that could miss practice this week and heal some.”??The stretch of four straight victories the Lions are on is something an A&M-Commerce team has not accomplished since 1995, when the Lions won five straight.??A&M-Commerce is currently tied with Central Oklahoma atop the Lone Star Conference North Division with a 3-1 division mark.?In the 43-21 routing of Lone Star Conference North Division foe East Central on Saturday, the Lions improved 5-5 on the season and had two more players earn conference honors.??Running back Nabil El-Amin, who has rushed for more than 100 yards in four consecutive games, breezed past triple digits again going for 138 yards and three touchdowns on 24 carries. He scored on runs of 40, 10 and four yards earning him LSC North Division Offensive Player of the Week honors.?While his recent play has sparked the offense, El-Amin didn’t earn his first start until the fifth game of the season at Tarleton State and he was unable to hit the 100-yard mark until the seventh game of the season against Southeastern Okla.??”It took us a while to find during the first part of the season what our needs were at the running back,” said Conley. “It became a guy that could run tackle to tackle, could be an inside runner. When we had health issues at quarterback, that affected some of the things that we could do. So that ball carrier had to change that identity and that’s what Nabil can do, and then he has the speed to make a play. I think a lot of it was him learning the offense and seeing where things fit in since he wasn’t able to be here in the spring.”??El-Amin made a bid for LSC North Division Special Teams Player of the Week as well, racing 90 yards on a kickoff return to open the second half of last week’s game.??But teammate and punter Daniel Swaim claimed that award.??Swaim booted the ball six times for 201 yards (33.5 avg.) with a long of 51. He also placed three kicks inside the 20-yard line.??It is the third time this season that Swaim has claimed the weekly award.??The Lions’ offense stayed consistent against East Central and has put up more than 40 points twice during the win streak.??Quarterback Terry Mayo hit 12 of 16 pass attempts with one touchdown and one interception and added four rushes for 13 yards and a touchdown. ??Wide receiver JaMichael Palmer notched six receptions for 114 yards and one score.??”The offense was being productive executing, we weren’t missing assignments, we were going out and doing the things we can do,” said Conley. “We had opportunities and just took advantage of those, some things we hadn’t done earlier in the year.” ??After giving up 13 first quarter points, the A&M-Commerce defense clamped down and only allowed eight points the rest of the way.?? Overall, the defense forced five turnovers and added four sacks, with Andree Smith recording three.??With the bye week behind them, A&M-Commerce will travel to Southwestern Oklahoma and will look to finish above the .500 mark for the first time since 1997 on Saturday.