GAMENOTES - GAME 6 - MISSOURI-ROLLA

SBU vs. Missouri-Rolla gamenotes

Missouri-Rolla

October 2

Bolivar, Missouri

2 p.m.

The Series
University of Missouri-Rolla - Southwest Baptist
This is the 19th meeting between the two schools and is the only conference school that SBU has a winning record against with a 12-5-1 record. SBU has won the last six contests. The closest the Miners have gotten to a victory in recent history was in 2000 when SBU won in overtime in Bolivar, 35-32. UMR’s last win was on Nov. 15, 1997 when the Miners won 19-0. The last time UMR was in Bolivar came in the 2002 season when SBU won 17-7. SBU Head Coach Ray Richards is 3-0 over the Miners at the helm of the Bearcats.

This will mark the final year that the Miners will be apart of the MIAA as they are moving to the Great Lakes Valley Conference in the 2005-06 season. They will compete as an independant for football.

The Coaches
University of Missouri-Rolla - Kirby Cannon
Beginning his sixth year at UMR, Coach Cannon has a 5-44 overall career record at UMR. In 2001, the Miners went 2-9. Cannon has coached at several NCAA schools in Truman State, Western Illinois, Northern Michigan, and North Central College. He was a graduate assistant at Iowa State. This is the first school he has been a head coach at.

He received his bachelor’s degree in 1981 from Southwest Missouri State where he was the quarterback. He was also a baseball player for SMSU in which he held the school record for career wins until 2003 when it was broken by Brad Ziegler.

Southwest Baptist - Ray Richards
Ray Richards begins his fourth year at SBU. He has led the Bearcats to a 12-21 record in three years and was 6-5 in his first season. The 2001 season was the first winning season in 10 years at SBU and because of his accomplishment he was named the MIAA “Coach of the Year."

Richards came to SBU from NCAA Division I University of Louisiana-Monroe. He spent two years there as the defensive backs coach. Prior to ULM, he was at Southeastern Oklahoma State for 10 years. He has also made one more stop at the NCAA Division I level as he was a graduate assistant at Texas Tech for one season.

Graduating from Northern Michigan in 1981, Richards helped NMU to the NCAA Division II playoffs in 1980.

The Teams
University of Missouri-Rolla
The Miners put up 27 points against Pittsburg State, the most by any team this season, but gave up 91 points. Pittsburg State set an MIAA record with 809 yards of total offense as the two teams combined for 1,192 offensive yards.

The game was scoreless until late in the first quarter, when Neal Philpot hit Mike Ward with a 21-yard touchdown pass that got the ball rolling for the Gorillas. PSU followed that score with touchdowns on their next eight possessions before UMR got on the board on Brandon Landry's two-yard scoring pass to Brett Fischer.

Landry would toss two more touchdown passes, one of six yards to Ashton Gronewald and the other of 14 yards to Antwan Smith. Mark Becker also threw a touchdown pass of 11 yards to Lagarius Criss.

The Miners had 383 yards of total offense, the most allowed by Division II's second-ranked defense on the season. Delane Ingram rushed for 46 yards while Brandon Landry passed for 200 yards.

Southwest Baptist
Special teams defeated SBU as the Bearcats gave up two blocked punts and a punt return for a touchdown in the 48-21 loss to CMSU. The Mules also returned an interception for a touchdown. CMSU scored 24 points off of SBU miscues.

SBU got on the board with 1:36 left in the first quarter when DeWitt Johnson caught an eight-yard pass from Robert Clardy to cut the lead to 17-7. CMSU then scored the next 17 points to take a commanding 34-7 lead.

Clardy scored SBU’s second touchdown in the third quarter (11:24) when he scrambled 29-yards to make it 34-14. He then picked up his second td run in the fourth quarter to make it 41-21.

Overall, Clardy rushed for 100 yards, his first career 100-yard game, and threw for 163 yards. Dan Sundberg was the leading receiver with five catches for 71 yards. Donald Williams led the defense with 15 tackles and one forced fumble.

Creative Clardy
Recording his first 100-yard rushing game, Clardy picked up 100 yards on 15 carries to lead SBU in rushing. He had two rushing touchdowns from 29 yards and five yards. The 29-yard touchdown run was a creative play in which he ran left, then ran right, and then finished off the run by weaving his way through defenders for the touchdown. He is now the second leading rusher for SBU with 294 yards. He is averaging 5.7 yards per carry.

NFL Watch
In his final season at SBU, senior L.V. Hill is being watched by the NFL scouts. Early on in spring practice, through summer, and now two-a-days, several NFL scouts have come to see what L.V. Hill is about. L.V. is a 6’5", 300 pound, offensive tackle that use to play tight end. Last year, he moved from tight end to strong tackle in the middle of the season because of injuries on the offensive line. Since that move, he has not left and was awarded 2003 all-MIAA honorable mention at the tackle spot.

Specs on L.V. Hill
4Squat 545
4Bench 400
4Clean 300
440 5.19
4Broad 9 ft.
4Pro I 5.2

Sure Hands Sundberg
Since being converted to a tight end from defense, senior Dan Sundberg has caught a pass in every game. Against CMSU, he had a career high 71 yards receiving and also tied a career high with five receptions. He now has 183 yards and is averaging 10.2 yards per catch. He has also had more than one catch in every game. In his first game as a tight end, he had 57 yards receiving on five catches.

First for 2004
Sophomore wide receiver DeWitt Johnson caught his first touchdown of the 2004 season when Clardy hit him across the middle for an eight-yard jaunt. This touchdown was his second career touchdown as he caught one last year against Missouri Southern. For his career, he now has 344 career yards receiving.

Defensive Donald
Collecting 15 tackles, defensive back Donald Williams had a career day. The 15 tackles was a career high. He also had one tackle-for-loss and one forced fumble. He now leads the team in tackling with 38. Last year, he had 64 tackles in 11 games played.

With the 15 tackles, he also broke into the top 10 in the MIAA for tackles. He is averagin 7.6 tackles per game and tied for eighth place.

Jiving JoJo
With 119 yards in kickoff returns, freshman JoJo Rawls is making his presence known to other teams. He averaged 19.8 yards per return with a long run of 30 yards. With those numbers, he vaulted into the top 10 in the MIAA in kickoff returns. He is tied for 10th in the MIAA and just one yard off of being out of the eighth spot.

Interception #1
Freshman Zach Porter recorded his first career interception. On CMSU’s second possession of the third quarter, he picked off Jimmy Sangster’s pass at the SBU six-yard line. He now has 26 tackles on the year and three pass breakups.

Bagging the Quarterback
The SBU defense has been putting a lot of pressure on the quarterback this season and recorded three sacks vs. CMSU. In that game, Klint King, Brigham Rowe, Joey Maiwelmal, and Cory McAdams combined for the three sacks.

Overall, sophomore defensive end Brad Hill is tied for fifth in the MIAA for sacks. He is averaging 0.50 sacks per game and has two sacks on the year. Josh Trimble has three sacks to lead the team.

Last year, the defense had 13 sacks. The defense this year already has nine sacks with six games to go.

Running Bearcats
SBU still had two runners in the top 10 of the MIAA for rushing. Junior Marco Kirven is in fourth with an average of 88.4 yards per game. Clardy is in 10th place with an average of 58.8 yards per game. Kirven has not had a 100-yard rushing game since Western New Mexico

This last game was the first game that Clardy had rushed for 100 yards in his career.

Whose Howry
Looking to play in his first game of the 2004 season, junior Travis Howry will suit up for the UMR game. He has not played this season due to an injury from the2003 season. He has now been released to play.

Howry will be moving over to the offense from defense. Last year, he had two interceptons and four recovered fumbles. He also recorded 12 tackles against Pittsburg State.

Penalize Us
In the upcoming game, both UMR and SBU are the least penalized teams in the MIAA. UMR leads the conference as the least penalized team as they average only 36.2 yards per game. SBU is a close second as they average 47.0 yards per game. UMR has only committed 25 penalties this season for 181 yards while SBU has 29 penalties for 235