But six games into the conference schedule there’s no doubt the Crusaders found what they’ve been looking for.
Ninth-ranked UMHB played perhaps its most complete game of the season Saturday afternoon, once again showing some offensive spark and defensive tenacity en route to a 27-6 victory over East Texas Baptist at Ornelas Stadium.
Much of the Crusaders’ fuel was provided by weak safety-turned-tailback Bryson Tucker, a former high school quarterback who slashed his way for 138 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries.
“It was a lot of fun carrying the rock again. I had missed it a little bit,” Tucker said after his first offensive foray in college. “It doesn’t matter to me where I play. Whatever we have to do to win, I’m fine with that. Whether it’s offense or defense, I’m just out here trying to make plays.”
On the heels of a less-than-dominant win over Mississippi College and a loss at NAIA Southern Oregon, the Crusaders (7-1 overall, 6-0 American Southwest Conference) asserted themselves against the Tigers (4-4, 4-3) and resembled the team they had envisioned when the season began.
“We really needed to have a game like this,” said UMHB coach Pete Fredenburg, whose squad needs one win in its last two regular-season games to clinch its seventh NCAA Division III playoff appearance in eight years. “We needed to play well for four quarters. I think our players are responding to the moves we made, and they’re bonding.”
The Crusaders churned out 410 yards - 298 on the ground - and held the Tigers to just 19 yards rushing and 140 total. In fact, the score might have been much more lopsided if not for three first-half fumbles that handcuffed UMHB and limited it to a 10-6 lead at the break.
“The message at halftime was that if we would hold onto the ball and quit giving them stupid penalties, we’d beat the snot out of these guys,” Fredenburg said.
That was exactly the case after intermission, when UMHB outgained ETBU 205 yards to 63. The second-half tone was set on the third quarter’s opening possession - a three-play, 66-yard Crusaders drive capped by Josh Landrum’s 3-yard touchdown run.
“We had the momentum and some confidence at halftime,” Tigers coach Mark Sartain said. “We felt like we had wasted some opportunities that we just needed to start making good on. Then they come out in the third quarter, and in a few plays they’re in the end zone. So that kind of pulls the plug on that.”
The quick-strike march was highlighted by a 59-yard scamper from senior quarterback Josh Saenz, who played the final two quarters after sophomore Kyle Noack handled the duties in the first half.
“Kyle had a wonderful week of practice,” Fredenburg said of the change in starting quarterback. “We were hesitant to start him, because we didn’t want Josh to lose his confidence because of the week he had at Southern Oregon. But as we got to game time, we decided to go with Kyle.”
Tucker ran for 83 yards on 11 tries in the first half, but UMHB’s only TD came on a 4-yard run by Matt Hurst - who returned from a shoulder injury and had six carries in his first action since Oct. 4.
Alan Munoz kicked a 45-yard field goal in the first quarter and a 22-yarder in the third before Tucker capped the scoring with a dancing 18-yard TD burst up the middle in the fourth.
“I was pretty comfortable coming into the game, so I wasn’t too nervous,” Tucker said. “(Running backs coach Jeff Shinn) has been working with me. I’ve practically lived at the fieldhouse this week. And I give all the credit to the offensive line. Anybody could have run through those holes.”
With the offense finding its groove, UMHB’s defense returned to its stalwart ways. A balanced ETBU offense that came in averaging 196 rushing yards per game never got anything going on the ground.
Without the threat of the run, quarterback Stephen Oehlschlaeger was harassed into a 16-of-29, 121-yard performance in which he was sacked three times and intercepted twice.
“Not being able to run is kind of like playing with only 10 men,” Sartain said. “You make a gameplan for success based on your areas of strength. You always have an alternate option, but Plan B is never as good as Plan A.”
The Tigers crossed midfield only twice in the second half, when they had the ball for just 12 of 30 minutes.
“We knew they were going to come out and try to run the ball at us, because they base their passing game off of that,” said UMHB junior linebacker John Hamilton, a Temple product who had two tackles for loss and was in on a sack in his first start. “The coaches had us really prepared for that.
“Our team had been talking about it since the first week of the season that we really hadn’t put a complete game together. Today still wasn’t the best we could do. We played with more emotion than we’ve been playing. We still have stuff to fix, but it was good to come out and have a good all-around game.”
NOTES: Lee Munn started in Tucker’s place at weak safety and made seven tackles. . . . Tucker became the sixth UMHB player to rush for 100 yards or more in a game this season.
edrennan@temple-telegram.com
