Box Score JACKSONVILLE, Fla.—The Southeastern offense exploded for 439 yards, helping the Fire knock off Edward Waters 54-13 to move to 2-0 in Sun Conference play.
Edward Waters (0-4, 0-2) rushed for a 56-yard touchdown on its first play of the game. A roughing the punter penalty against the Tigers extended SEU's third drive of the game, allowing it to finish a 10-play, 67-yard drive with a
Lorine Parker 1-yard TD run to tie the game with 7:32 left in the first.
The defense picked up the second touchdown of the night when
Dance Estes jarred the ball loose from EWC QB Taron Williams and
Brice Hatcher grabbed it and ran 86-yards to give the Fire a 14-7 advantage on the first play of the second quarter.
"When our linebackers are scoring a touchdown a game, that makes it a lot easier," said coach
Keith Barefield. "That really picked us up as well. We were struggling on both sides, but when we got the turnovers, it got us going."
Railond Garrett came in during the second quarter due to an injury to starting quarterback
Jonathan Pearce, and went 7-of-15 for 61 yards and two touchdowns to
Dakota Duron, both in the second quarter, giving the Fire a 28-7 halftime lead.
Duron was the game's leading receiver with six catches for 58 yards.
In the third quarter,
Jarrell Reynolds found the end zone with a 5-yard run to make it 35-7. Reynolds was the game's leading rusher with 197 yards on 26 carries.
"We wanted to focus on the run game a little bit more," said Barefield. "We, as a staff, felt to be the kind of team we want to be, we need to be a little more physical on offense and run the ball between the tackles, and I felt like we accomplished some things in that area tonight."
Parker, who played defensive line in Southeastern's previous game, added two more second half touchdown runs of 2- and 3-yards. He finished the night with 62 yards on 12 carries and three scores.
After the Fire scored 52 straight points, the Tigers scored on a 5-yard touchdown run with 3:14 to play.
Collin Thomas blocked the extra point, which was returned for two points by
Mark Myers.
The Fire return home on Saturday to host Virginia University Lynchburg at 7 p.m.
