LAKELAND, Fla.—On a night where points and yards were hard to come by, the Southeastern defense made it even tougher.
The Fire held Webber International to just five first downs and a total of 74 yards in a 21-7 win to open Sun Division play 1-0.
Additionally, Southeastern held WIU to just 1-of-12 on third down.
"When we are executing the way we can, we've got some dogs that will bite on defense," said coach
Cesar Rivas-Sandoval. "They were playing with a confidence that I knew they were capable of."
With 2:11 left in the second quarter, quarterback
Cooper Jones found tight end
Jared Romaelle for a 2-yard touchdown pass, but the extra point failed as the Fire took a 6-0 lead.
"We weren't executing to our standards in the first half and our guys wanted to take control of the locker room and say this isn't our style of football," said Rivas. "Our coaches made some great adjustments to counteract the weather and what they were seeing to exploit some things."
After forcing a punt on the next drive, the Fire drove down with a chance to make it a two-score game heading to halftime but turned the ball over for the second time in the half with an interception.
On the first possession of the third quarter, Jones was picked off by Jamon Jones who raced 70 yards to tie the game, then take the lead on the extra point.
The next drive saw the Fire go 51 yards on six plays and end with a three-yard pass from Jones to
Myles Henderson, then find Wendell Harris for a 2-point conversion to go up 14-7 with 9:28 left in the third.
"We have some grit," said Rivas. "Today was one of those games where nothing was going to be perfect, you're not lighting up the scoreboard, and fighting for everything against a tough defense and we said keep working and it was good to see us get over the adversity and mental block at that time and it was great to see."
Jones finished the game 17-of-35 for 164 yards with two touchdowns, two interceptions, and was sacked once. His top target with Harris, who had five catches for 59 yards.
With 4:37 left in the quarter, the Warriors went back to punt in their own end zone. The snap came up short to the punter and was recovered by
Carlos Burke for a touchdown.
Bryan Bell led the ground game with 97 yards on 16 carries.
Khalid Scott led the defense with seven tackles, three for loss, and broke up a pass. The Fire registered a total of 9.5 tackles for loss in the game.
The Fire will return to Victory Field next Saturday with a 7 p.m. kick off against Keiser.
