ABILENE, Texas – Hardin-Simmons' football team beat Mary Hardin-Baylor 27-19 on Saturday afternoon at Shelton Stadium to claim its third straight win over the Crusaders and second-straight American Southwest Conference title.
Mary Hardin-Baylor struck first when Edwin Lopez hit a 37-yard field goal with 6:36 to play in the first quarter. The Cowboys answered with a 16-play, 75-yard drive that took 7:13 off the clock.
Kyle Brown capped the drive with a 2-yard touchdown run.
HSU then forced a punt and drove the field again and Ethan Brungard nailed a 31-yard field goal. Brumgard was the Cowboys' placekicker for the first time as
Grayson Bearden had emergency appendix surgery on Monday. Brumgard handled the kickoff, placekicking and punting duties in the game for HSU.
The Cowboy defense which was dominating most of the game, forced another quick punt and it turned into points. All-American kick returner
Dameon Gomes returned the punt down to the UMHB 7-yard line and
Braylon Henry scored on the first play to make it 17-3 with 4:37 to play in the half.
HSU's defense had one more stop in them in the half as freshman
Keyon House picked off a Jake Wright pass and returned it 46 yards to the UMHB 6-yard line with :05 to play. It allowed the Cowboys to send out the field goal team for a Brumgard 23-yard field goal as time expired in the first half, with HSU leading 20-3.
Like the Cowboy defense has done every time this season, they got a stop on the opening possession of the second half. The offense responded with a 10-play, 63-yard drive. Sophomore
Derrick Roberson scored on a fourth-and-one situation from the UMHB 7-yard line. It was his first action of the season.
The Cowboys led 27-3 after the third quarter. UMHB scored on a pair of Daunte Blake short touchdown runs of four and two yards and both times the Crusaders converted the two-point conversion.
UMHB had the ball with a chance to tie the game with 1:48 to play but
LeBron Tah and
Hayden Hays split a sack on first down and
Charlie Patterson added one of his own on second down. UMHB couldn't convert on third and fourth down and the Cowboys ran out the clock on the victory.
The Cowboys limited the Crusaders to 238 yards of offense in the game. Heading to the fourth quarter UMHB only had 77 yards in the contest. UMHB finished the game with 45 yards rushing on 30 attempts.
Charlie Patterson was a dominant force in the contest recording 12 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss and three sacks for 27 yards.
LeBron Tah had 2.5 tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks.
Henry had 28 carries for 85 yards and a touchdown in the game. Brown was 13-of-24 for 1664 yards and he also rushed for a touchdown.
HSU is 9-0 on the year and 5-0 in ASC play and will close the regular season at East Texas Baptist next week at 1 p.m. UMHB fell to 4-3 overall and to 3-2 in conference play.
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