Second-half surge leads Wolves past SMSU
Mustangs’ offense stalls out with one first down after halftime
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MARSHALL -- The Southwest Minnesota State football team was unable to ride its early success against Northern State to a win on Saturday afternoon. The Mustangs led 14-3 early in the second quarter, but a 21-3 Wolves' scoring run and a lack of offensive production in the second half led to a 24-17 loss for SMSU.
"I thought we had some opportunities, certainly in the first quarter and into the second quarter, to do some good things and I think we did. Then we dropped the ball here or something like that and the defense gave up a play, but really going into the second half to give up an easy RPO and get it out the gate for 6 [points] put us kind of on our heels," SMSU head coach Scott Underwood said. "Until we can carry what we can carry what we're doing in practice and defend it, it's going to be tough."
The Mustangs didn't take long to ignite their offense to start the game. Martin completed a pass to Donald Austin on a flat route for a 26-yard gain with the tackler potentially saving a touchdown. Two plays later, Martin found Eric Lira down the sideline on a 27-yard go route to set SMSU up at the 12-yard line. Austin then punched in a 12-yard run up the middle, nearly untouched, for his third touchdown of the season and a 7-0 Mustang lead just two minutes into the game.
Northern State responded with a 25-yard field goal but the Mustangs marched right back. Second-string quarterback Tomele Staples came in on second and third down, converting an 8-yard curl to Peter Osman on third-and-6 to keep the chains moving. Martin then came back in the game and, after running for a nine-yard gain to move the chains on second-and-7, hit Lira with a 45-yard go route for a 14-3 lead.
When asked if Staples could see an increase in playing time, Underwood said that the team's decision is yet to be determined. He added that he believes Martin played well overall but that the team will evaluate what the team's best option is each week.
The catch marked Lira's first receiving touchdown with his only other score being a 52-yard run against Concordia-St. Paul last season. Lira caught four passes for a career-high 89 yards against Northern State on Saturday while Martin threw 23 passes for 201 yards.
The Wolves seemed to be marching down the field on the following drive, taking their first deep shot to Dakota Larson on an out route for an 18-yard gain, but the Northern State offense stalled out by the goal line. Jordan Ellis made a key stop on third-and-13, jumping up to swat a fade to Larson in the back of the end zone to force a field goal attempt. Drew Smook's 45-yard attempt was no good, keeping the Mustangs' 11-point lead intact. Ellis deflected three passes on the day.
Marcus Martin made some plays with his legs on the following drive, picking up a first down on a tush-push on the Mustangs' first set of downs and running for an 11-yard gain on third-and-2 to put SMSU in Northern State territory.
Facing fourth-and-4 from the 37-yard line, Martin took another deep shot to Lira on a go route. Lira had plenty of space between him and the defender and looked to have a surefire touchdown, but the ball was overthrown and instead fell incomplete for a turnover on downs.
Martin attempted to connect with Lira again on the next possession, throwing a pass from the SMSU 32-yard line down to the Northern State 30-yard line, but Lira dropped the pass and Martin was intercepted on the next play. The Wolves capitalized with a 51-yard touchdown to Larson just three plays later to cut the Mustangs' lead to 14-10.
Peter Osman caught a pass on the sideline and, after snaking through the defense, hurdled a man before being downed at the 27-yard line for a 41-yard gain. SMSU was limited to a total gain of three yards on the next three plays but Carter Dicker was able to nail a 41-yard field goal -- his longest of the season by 10 yards -- to give the Mustangs a 7-point advantage. Northern State got the ball back with just over a minute remaining, but Cam Irvin sacked Colton Hackel on the first play from scrimmage to discourage any Wolves' attempt to run a no-huddle offense in an effort to close the gap before halftime.
The Mustangs held the conference's receiving yards leader, Dewaylon Ingram, to just three yards in the first half. It didn't take long for him to get active in the second. Hackel hit Ingram on a run-pass option for a 63-yard touchdown on the first play from scrimmage after the break. It took just 16 seconds for Northern State to tie the game and the Mustangs never regained the lead. Ingram caught the ball four times for 129 yards after halftime.
"It's not a play we hadn't defended all week and taught, we just got a bad angle on it and it ended up being good execution by them," Underwood said on the touchdown. "They're talented receivers that they have. At times, we probably gave them a little too much time to throw the ball... it's a two-fold deal as far as being able to get a pass rush to speed up the quarterback's time clock and then us being able to cover and sometimes we broke down on both ends of that."
Three plays into the Wolves' next possession, Hackel connected with Ingram again for a 43-yard gain to set up Northern State at the SMSU 9-yard line.
Two plays later, Hackel took the ball into the end zone himself with a 7-yard run. Hackel ran the ball 10 times for 63 yards on the day, putting him as the game's second-leading rusher behind Brett Benton's 116 yards.
While Northern State's offense fired on all cylinders after the break, the Mustangs couldn't find anything to spark theirs. SMSU went 3-and-out on each of its first four possessions of the half for a total of nine yards. Jake Anderson caught a pass for a 24-yard gain on third-and-15 in the Mustangs' final drive of the game, but a pair of incompletions and a false start forced the Mustangs to punt the ball away with under five minutes remaining. The Wolves took their time with the ball and ran out the remainder of the clock.
The Mustangs' best opportunity of the second half came in the third quarter. Northern State took a shot downfield on what looked like a free play, but no flag was thrown for an SMSU neutral zone infraction so the Wolves elected to punt after the pass fell incomplete. Instead of pinning the Mustangs deep, however, Tate Gaul blocked the punt to set the Mustangs up at the Northern State 47-yard line. The block was Gaul's second of the season, the first coming in a loss to Wayne State. Still, the Mustangs were unable to take advantage of the field position and were forced to punt after losing two yards over three plays after taking over.
Josiah Hedensten and Gideon Ervasti led the Mustang defense with 12 tackles each while Thomas Mergen and Jalani Jefferson finished with 11 and 10 respectively. Hedensten also had 2.5 tackles for loss in the game.
After finding the end zone on each of their first two possessions of the second half, the Wolves found themselves within scoring range again on their third drive after Hackel ran for a 27-yard gain to set up shop at the 10-yard line. Yet, Hunter Bohannon made a key deflection on a second-down target to Ingram to keep Northern State out of the end zone. The third-down pass fell incomplete and Jefferson ran right past the offensive line to get close to the kicker on the 27-yard field goal attempt. Jefferson didn't deflect the ball but his presence was felt and the field goal went wide left to keep the Mustangs in a one-score game.
Northern State improves to 3-4 on the season, both overall and in conference play, while Southwest Minnesota State falls to 1-5 in conference play (1-6 overall) and drops to 11th in the conference standings. The Mustangs will look to gain some ground when they host Minnesota State Moorhead (4-3, 3-3 NSIC) for the Tackle Cancer game on Saturday at 1 p.m.
"They're hitting on all cylinders, certainly their quarterback [Jack Strand] is a special player at this time. We'll have to look a little different defensively against what they do with our personnel. There'll be some things that need to get corrected that we did today, but we'll also carry into the true passing game. They're not typically too long of a ball throw," Underwood said. "They're striking in between ins and outs and occasionally throw it up if you're overcrowded or got an edge, so we'll look at them as we move into Sunday."