LAKELAND, Fla.—Southeastern came up short against Florida Memorial on Homecoming in a game that featured four lead changes.
A pair of fourth quarter touchdowns by quarterback Cedquan Smith helped Florida Memorial pick up a 35-24 victory for their fifth win of the season.
Despite two special teams mishaps in the first half, the Fire responded to the Lions' early touchdown with a 37-yard field goal by
Andrew Hartwig with 6:57 left in the first quarter and a two-yard touchdown run by
Curtis Kimmons with 13:33 left in the second quarter to go up 10-7.
Kimmons led the Fire ground attack with 79 yards on 13 carries.
"The run game was really impressive, I thought we blocked up our plays well and our backs played well," said coach
Adam Waugh. "Hopefully we can build off that in the next two weeks."
Florida Memorial answered with a 46-yard touchdown pass just three minutes later and an 11-yard touchdown pass with 2:26 left in the quarter to take a 20-10 lead into halftime.
"It was frustrating to get down early because we thought we were playing pretty good football," said Waugh. "We felt good at halftime that if we could clean up some of the special teams mistakes that we could go ahead and get a win."
The Fire defense forced a punt on FMU's first drive of the third quarter and the offense went 84 yards on nine run plays ending with
Josiah Neos scoring from five yards out with 7:04 left in the third.
Neos finished with 54 yards on 15 carries.
Southeastern picked up a pair of takeaways by sophomore
Ian Jolly on the next two drives with the safety registering an interception and a fumble recovery to keep the Fire within a score. Jolly also added four tackles on the night.
With just eight seconds left in the third,
Nate Hayden scored on a quarterback sneak to put the Fire back up 24-20.
"We had the momentum there for awhile and thought we were in the driver's seat but gave up a couple too many big plays at the end," said Waugh.
In the fourth quarter, the Lions accumulated 131 of their 376 yards in the contest and got a 24-yard touchdown run from Smith on third down with 8:15 left to take a three-point lead and an 18-yard touchdown pass with 4:13 left.
"We had to stack the box to stop the run and that put us in some one-on-one situations at times where we had to pressure and play man and got beat a couple of times," said Waugh. "We have a couple of young players back there that are learning on the fly but overall, I thought the defense competed hard and played well."
Ryan Cunningham had a team-high nine tackles.
Trever Dorris added eight stops with a tackle for loss.
The Fire will travel to St. Thomas next week for a noon kickoff.
