HOUSTON – HBU opened the second half with a field goal and a touchdown, but second-ranked Sam Houston State responded with three unanswered touchdowns to claim a 52-16 victory in Southland Conference football Saturday night at Husky Stadium.
Junior running back
Terrance Peters rushed 18 times for 104 yards for the Huskies (2-2, 1-2 SLC), his second-straight 100-plus yard performance against the Bearkats (3-0, 2-0). Senior quarterback
Tony Dawson completed 15-of-34 passes for 153 yards and a touchdown, while also rushing 12 times for 53 yards. Senior wide receiver
Ricardo Barnett made five catches for 60 yards, junior
Isaiah Hall had four for 40 yards, and junior H-back
Mev Ajdin had three catches for 36 yards and a touchdown.
Junior linebackers
Garrett Dolan and
Taylor Holmes had 10 tackles each to lead HBU defensively. In addition to his career-high in stops, Holmes added a forced fumble. Junior safety
La'Travien Gee and freshman defensive end
Andre Walker made eight tackles apiece.
Sophomore kicker
Alec Chadwick was 3-for-3 on field goal attempts, including an HBU school-record 46-yarder. Junior punter
Christian Guzman punted 10 times for a 41.7-yard average and boomed a kick that traveled a season-long 59 yards, all in the air.
Jeremiah Briscoe completed 26-of-47 passes for 369 yards and three touchdowns for SHSU. Remus Bulmer rushed 19 times for 124 yards and a pair of touchdowns, while Javin Webb rushed for 48 yards and a pair of scores. Yedidiah Louis made six catches for 111 yards and a touchdown, Tyler Scott had three receptions for 73 yards and Davion Davis made three catches for 60 yards and a score.
Mouf Abedo led the Bearkats with eight tackles, while P.J. Hall had seven tackles and 2.5 of SHSU's five sacks. Hunter Brown also was in on seven stops for SHSU.
SHSU totaled 632 yards of offense to HBU's 370. The rushing yards were nearly even as the Bearkats edged the Huskies, 219-217, but SHSU had 260 more passing yards. Neither team threw an interception and each team lost a fumble, oddly enough, on the same play.
The Bearkats opened the first half scoring with four touchdowns to lead 28-0 early in the second quarter. Webb scored on a one-yard run set up by Briscoe's 37-yard completion to Davis to the HBU 8. Later in the first Briscoe found Louis for a 48-yard touchdown hookup, then Webb scored on a 13-yard run. Briscoe then hit Nathan Stewart for an eight-yard touchdown with 13:04 remaining in the half.
Dawson hit Hall for a 16-yard gain, then Dawson had back-to-back runs of 19 and 26 yards to get inside the SHSU 10, but the Huskies had to settle for a 21-yard field goal by Chadwick. SHSU answered with a Luc Swimberghe 29-yard field goal. On the ensuing possession, Dawson ran for 16 yards, then Peters broke off a 26-yard scamper to the SHSU 28. Dawson completed a 14-yard pass to junior wide receiver
Wesley Lewis, but a false start penalty and an eight-yard sack pushed the Huskies back to the 29, and Chadwick drilled the 46-yard field goal to make the score 31-6 at halftime.
On HBU's opening possession of the second half, Dawson's 32-yard completion to Barnett set up Chadwick's 24-yard field goal. After forcing a Bearkats punt, Dawson marched the Huskies down the field and capped the drive with a 12-yard touchdown pass to Ajdin to cut the deficit to 31-16. Ajdin had a solid night as a receiver out of the backfield, as he made a lefthanded, one-handed 15-yard catch in the first half.
SHSU capped off the scoring for the night on Briscoe's 17-yard touchdown pass to Davis, then one-yard and 13-yard touchdowns by Bulmer.
The Huskies return to action when they travel to face Western Kentucky, their first-ever FBS opponent, Oct. 1 at 6 p.m. in Bowling Green.
POSTGAME QUOTES
Head Coach Vic Shealy
"You kind of look at the last two years and we've kind of gotten our numbers up, trying to grow our roster, I think you're seeing some of the gap in order to compete better, but (Sam Houston State) came out and they are playing at such a high level, a tremendous level right now. If you look at where they are right now, everybody in the league is shooting to be that team. Last week we beat Abilene Christian, and that was a great win, but there's a difference between Sam and the rest of the league right now, that's what it looks like."
"We didn't have a very good first quarter, but we slowed down and played much better in the second quarter, we caught up to the speed of the game, started running the ball and Tony made some plays. Even though 31-6 is not a very good halftime score, I thought there were some things we accomplished on those drives and coming out in the first nine or 10 minutes of the third quarter, we started chipping away to score 10 unanswered points. You're down 31-16 and you feel like you've got some things going, but we got a little dysfunctional in a couple of areas and we had guys dropping left and right."
"Certainly, we took the fight further into the third quarter than we had in the past and there are positive things to build on, but you work so hard to win every ballgame and no matter who you're playing, you work so hard to compete and coach your kids to win one-on-one situations, so collectively when every player does their job that the product looks really awesome. We'll keep on going back and study the film tomorrow, we become a better team, sometimes you've got to play these teams and it's part of the journey of getting better. If we want to be this type of team one day, then we'll learn to play better like that kind of team."
