Lancers to be tested early; WSU has holes to fill after 1st winning season since '04.

• Position: SPORTS

Byline: Bill Doyle

WORCESTER - A lot of former backups will try to make sure the Worcester State football team doesn't back down this season.

The Lancers return only four starters on offense and five on defense. The good news is the backups last season played for the best WSU team in nearly a decade. They probably would have started for a lot of other Lancers teams. WSU was 8-3 for its first winning season since 2004 and its best record since 8-3 in 2003.

"We have a real good core coming back," coach Brien Cullen said, "and the new kids we have coming in actually are athletically just as good if not better, but they're pups. They're still learning the whole thing. How they pick up the system will be the key."

Worcester State visits city rival WPI and defending New England Football Conference champion Western New England in the second and third weeks of the season, so the young squad will be tested early.

The Lancers must replace all-NEFC quarterback Tony Tokarz, who threw for 24 touchdowns, and running back Marcus Price, who rushed for a school-record 1,230 yards last season despite missing one game and most of another with a leg injury. Tokarz and Price accounted for 325 of the 388 yards WSU averaged per game.

Senior Corey Spencer, who backed up Tokarz the past two years, is expected to start the season opener at 7 p.m. Friday at home against Anna Maria. Tokarz will be on the opposing sidelines as a graduate assistant and wide receivers coach for the AmCats.

Spencer completed only 9 of 27 passes for 175 yards and one touchdown with two interceptions last season, but he did throw for a touchdown in overtime and the winning conversion in the third OT in a 42-40 victory over Westfield State. His teammates respected him so much, they voted him one of the team's four captains this fall. Cullen said Spencer is the first backup to be voted a captain in his 30 years as WSU head coach.

"He had a great spring and he's been here all summer working out," Cullen said.

Cullen also could turn to sophomore Kevin Bumpus, who transferred from Assumption. Bumpus threw for 1,220 yards and five scores and ran for 230 yards and five TDs last season and was Worcester Area Offensive Rookie of the Year.

Whoever ends up at quarterback will line up behind an offensive line that returns only one full-time starter, tackle Kyle Morris, but will be throwing to an experienced receiving corps. Three of WSU's four returning offensive starters are junior slot receiver A.J...