MIAMI GARDENS, Fla.—A promising start was unable to yield a win in Southeastern's game at No. 17 St. Thomas.
The Fire led 14-0 at the end of the first, but 27-straight points by the hosts gave them a 33-21 win in Saturday's Sun Conference game.
"The challenge was to go play a good, complete football game and I thought for the most part we did," said coach
Adam Waugh. "There were some mistakes here and there, but overall they showed up to compete and that's all I can ask for."
On the second play of the game, the Fire defense recovered a fumble to set up the offense at the St. Thomas 41-yard line. Ten plays later,
Henry Austad found
Shane McLaughlin from six yards out on third-and-goal. The Bobcats went three-and-out on their next drive and a short punt set the Fire up again at the STU 41. An 18-yard pass from Austad to
Seraiah Abram made it 14-0 with 5:24 left in the first.
Austad finished 24-of-39 for 241 yards. McLaughlin finished with 52 yards.
St. Thomas responded in the second quarter with a 44-yard touchdown pass on third-and-13 after blocking a 31-yard field goal attempt on the previous drive, then tied the game with a 10-yard touchdown run with 2:21 left. A five-yard touchdown pass with eight second left in the third gave the Bobcats the lead.
The defense kept the Fire in the contest by holding the Bobcats to a pair of chip shot field goals in the third quarter.
Trailing 27-14 in the fourth, sophomore
Curtis Kimmons capped off a six-play, 75-yard drive with a six-yard touchdown run to cut the deficit to six.
Kimmons finished with 59 yards on 13 carries.
"I thought we had a nice balance of run and pass, we just shot ourselves in the foot on some scoring opportunities," said Waugh. "Curtis has come along well, he's big and strong but has a lot of speed as well."
St. Thomas put hopes of a comeback on ice with a 71-yard touchdown pass on third-and-eight with 2:07 to play.
"What's frustrating is I think it was a much closer game than the final score indicated," said Waugh. "We gave up some big plays at tough times with young guys learning as they go and sometimes they have to learn the hard way. We hope they grow up and get more experience that it will be beneficial to go through these trials."
Total, the Fire held the No. 4 scoring offense in the NAIA to 11 points below their season average and the No. 2 rusher in the NAIA to nearly 100 yards under his season average.
"It was a big challenge against a really good back with a really good offensive line," said Waugh. "We didn't really do anything different, we just executed the game plan. Our guys up front did a good job keeping them contained and made tackles."
Ryan Cunningham was at the top of the tackle chart with 11.
James Hamilton added seven with one for loss.
George Phillip racked up 1.5 tackles for loss.
The Fire will close out their season next week at home against Ave Maria at 7 p.m.
