No. 7 UMHB put a cap on its regular season Saturday afternoon with a 42-20 victory over Sul Ross State at sunny Jackson Field, extending the Crusaders’ conference winning streak to 29 games and sending them into the NCAA Division III playoffs on the heels of three straight momentum-building wins.
“You’re never quite sure exactly how you’re going to play after making the long trip (400-plus miles) out here,” UMHB coach Pete Fredenburg said. “But our main goal was to win our fourth conference championship, and we did that.”
The Crusaders (9-1 overall, 8-0 ASC) will learn their first-round playoff fate when the NCAA releases the 32-team bracket at 2 p.m. today. It will be UMHB’s fifth straight postseason appearance and seventh in eight years.
“Four straight years, four rings. That was our main goal. That was our focus,” said senior linebacker Eric Henri, who made a team-high 10 tackles, three for losses. “And winning never gets old, especially winning championships. That’s what we play the game for.”
At times, the Crusaders’ execution wasn’t as crisp as the past two weeks - a 27-6 win at East Texas Baptist and a 67-0 rout of Howard Payne - but the final numbers still were impressive.
UMHB racked up 304 first-half yards and finished with 456, and it limited SRSU (3-7, 2-6) to 229. In his third start at tailback, Bryson Tucker ran for 104 yards on just 12 carries. Sophomore quarterback Kyle Noack was 4-of-5 passing for 79 yards and two touchdowns despite playing less than 1˝ quarters. And speedy receiver Pi’Dadro Davis totaled 114 yards and two scores on three receptions.
“Kyle got a little banged up. He’s okay, but we just didn’t want to take a chance,” Fredenburg said of Noack giving way to Josh Saenz only one drive into the second quarter. “And offensively, I think we only stopped ourselves.”
UMHB took command from the get-go, needing only four plays to cover 76 yards on the game’s opening possession, and Noack’s 39-yard TD pass to Davis made it 7-0. The Crusaders’ second drive was more methodical, a 12-play, 75-yard march that was capped by Noack’s 8-yard fade pass to Ervin Johnson in the back-right corner of the end zone for a 14-0 advantage.
The Lobos got as close as 14-7 late in the first quarter on a 32-yard scoring run by quick-footed freshman running back Jermaine Swearington, who totaled 81 yards on 14 carries.
But SRSU never threatened to seize the momentum, thanks to Matt Hurst’s 3-yard TD run and Saenz’s 33-yard scoring pass to Davis, the latter of which came just 22 seconds before intermission and gave UMHB a 28-7 halftime cushion.
“You would like to be a little smoother, execution-wise,” Fredenburg said of his team’s performance. “The good thing is that they exposed some things that we can work on, and that will help.”
After the Lobos got a pair of third-quarter field goals from Mike Van Wagner, the Crusaders’ defense thwarted any thoughts of a rally by forcing two turnovers in the final period.
Sophomore linebacker Ben Beckworth hopped on a fumble by quarterback Monte Morales at the Lobos’ 11 to set up a 2-yard TD plunge by Hurst, and junior linebacker John Hamilton (Temple) recovered a Dominique Carson fumble that led to a 19-yard scoring run by Roger Sanchez and a 42-13 lead.
Morales completed just seven of 22 attempts for 95 yards and was sacked three times.
“We feel like we’ve been playing a lot better the last few weeks,” Henri said. “This is the right time of year to be playing your best, and we feel like we’re playing better now than we have all season.”
A likely first-round playoff pairing would have ASC rival Hardin-Simmons (9-1, 7-1) visiting UMHB at noon next Saturday at Belton’s Tiger Field. The Crusaders held on at home to beat the Cowboys 20-18 in early October, and UMHB is 2-0 all-time against HSU in the postseason.
Fredenburg, however, didn’t want to make an official pairings prediction.
“Let me say this: Hardin-Simmons has some rooms reserved in Temple, so I imagine they anticipate that happening,” he said.
NOTES: Sophomore center Dustin Davis, who has been hampered by an injured ankle, left early in the first quarter and did not return. “Dustin Davis will be fine. He just has that nagging ankle injury. He probably could have come back, but we kept him out,” Fredenburg said. . . . The ASC title is the sixth in the 11-year history of the UMHB football program.
edrennan@temple-telegram.com
