Southwest Missouri State 45, ISU Sycamores 10

SMS Overcomes Early Mistakes to Defeat ISU, 45-10

SPRINGFIELD, MO - (11-1-2003) — ISU was able to jump out to a quick 10-0 lead, but quickly saw SMS come back in winning, 45-10. With turnovers and mistakes in the kicking game costing the Sycamores during its recent four-game losing streak, it seemed that Saturday was going to be a different day as they took advantage of three Southwest Missouri St. turnovers and a muffed punt early to race out to a 10-0 lead.

The tide turned in the second quarter when ISU began to give up big plays to the SMS defense and special teams units as the Bears claimed a 45-10 win over the Sycamores on an overcast afternoon at Plaster Field. With the loss, ISU drops to 3-7 overall and 0-5 in the Gateway while SMS moved to 4-5 overall and 1-4 in conference play.

The Sycamores were able to open the scoring on a career-best 39-yard field goal by freshman Kyle Hooper with 5:28 left in the first quarter as ISU took a 3-0 lead. The short 23-yard drive was set up by a Cody Pratt fumble that was recovered by Larry Thompson at the SMS 45-yard line.

With time winding down in the first quarter the Sycamore defense struck again as Pratt fumbled for a second time, this one at the 50-yard line, setting up the Sycamores with a short field. On fourth and short at the SMS 42-yard line quarterback Phillip Johnson was stopped short of the first down giving the ball back to the Bears. It would not hurt as the Sycamore defense came right back to stop the SMS offense and force a punt.

With the ball on their own 41-yard line, following a punt and an SMS personal foul, the ISU offense was stopped, but a 41-yard Pat Jordan punt was muffed on the return and the ball shot into the endzone where senior Ben Thompkins fell onto the ball for his first career touchdown and a 10-0 lead after the Hooper extra point with 11:19 left in the first half.

Then things that were going ISU’s way started to turn towards the favor of the home team as Anthony Sullivan returned a Phillip Johnson pass 13 yards to the ISU 32-yard line when a Sycamore personal foul gave SMS excellent starting field position inside the ISU 20. With the SMS offense needing a jump start, head coach Randy Ball decided to go with backup A.J. Porter, who threw a 15-yard touchdown pass on the second play of the drive to sophomore Kaya Farris with 7:17 left in the half to move the Bears to within three points of the Sycamores at 10-7.

Pratt was able to make up for earlier mistakes with time winding down in the first half as he scored on a 21-yard scamper over the right side with 54 seconds left to take a 14-10 lead. The Bears were not done there as a muffed kickoff return by the Sycamores was recovered by SMS at the ISU 34-yard line. From there it took four plays and a personal foul facemask penalty for the Bears’ placekicker Jon Scifres to attempt a 29-yard field goal which sailed wide right to send ISU back to the locker room down 14-10.

After defensive stops by both teams to open the second half, SMS received the first break of the second half when punt returner Michael Sparks took a Jordan kick back to the Sycamore three-yard line with just under nine and a half minutes left in the third quarter. It took just one play from there, as Pratt found the endzone for the second time in the game on a three-yard rush with 9:19 left to five SMS the 21-10 lead.

Things didn’t get any better on the Sycamores’ second drive as Johnson threw his second interception of the game, which was returned to the ISU six-yard line where it took Preston Portee just two plays to go over the top from the two-yard line to give SMS a 28-10 lead with 6:12 left in the third quarter.

SMS was able to take advantage of a short field created by a punt return inside the Sycamore 35-yard line when Pratt reached paydirt for his third time on the day, racing down the left side of the field giving the Bears a 35-10 lead with 2:24 remaining in the third.

The Bears continued their solid second half when Scifres nailed a 27-yard field goal with 6:11 left in the game to move up 42-10.

SMS plunged it in one more time with 3:40 left in the game when Brandon Taylor scored on a 16 yard run to give the Bears a 45-10 win.

“I thought that we played a good first half,” Sycamore head coach Tim McGuire said. “The turnovers helped us get out of the gate well as we jumped right on them. Before the half we had a couple of big turnovers that gave them a boost and they were able to take it into the second half.”

A look at the final stats show that Andre Forte led the Sycamore ground attack with 51 yards on 13 carries while Ben Thompkins gained 26 yards on the ground on 12 attempts.

ISU’s leading receiver was Carl Berman who caught two passes for 15 yards.

Once again, the injury bug bit ISU as several players left the game with injuries including Forte who dinged up a knee and Adam Vogel suffered a high ankle sprain.

Scoring Summary:

1st 05:28 ISU - Hooper, K. 39 yd field goal 5 plays, 23 yards, TOP 2:00, ISU 3 - SMS 0

2nd 11:19 ISU - Thompkins, B. 0 yd fumble recovery (Hooper, K. kick) ISU 10 - SMS 0

07:17 SMS - Farris,Kaya 15 yd pass from Porter,AJ (Scifres,Jon kick) 2 plays, 17 yards, TOP 0:42, ISU 10 - SMS 7

00:54 SMS - Pratt,Cody 21 yd run (Scifres,Jon kick) 11 plays, 80 yards, TOP 3:12, ISU 10 - SMS 14

3rd 09:19 SMS - Pratt,Cody 3 yd run (Scifres,Jon kick) 1 play, 3 yards, TOP 0:04, ISU 10 - SMS 21

06:12 SMS - Portee,Preston 2 yd run (Scifres,Jon kick) 2 plays, 6 yards, TOP 0:45, ISU 10 - SMS 28

02:24 SMS - Pratt,Cody 9 yd run (Scifres,Jon kick) 5 plays, 32 yards, TOP 2:12, ISU 10 - SMS 35

4th 06:11 SMS - Scifres,Jon 27 yd field goal 9 plays, 35 yards, TOP 3:26, ISU 10 - SMS 38

03:40 SMS - Taylor,Brandon 16 yd run (Scifres,Jon kick) 3 plays, 25 yards, TOP 1:20, ISU 10 - SMS 45

The Sycamores close out the home season next Saturday when they host Western Illinois on Saturday, November 8 at 11:05 p.m. CST (12:05 p.m., EST) at Memorial Stadium. The game will be televised as part of the Gateway Football Conference’s television package on Fox Sports Midwest. USA-365.com provides live Internet audio streaming with Brian Fritz providing the play-by-play and Ben Wagner with the color commentary. The pre-game show starts at 10:40 p.m., with the kick-off set for 11:05 p.m., CST on www.USA-365.com.

New to USA-365.com this season is a special audio archive of the previous Indiana State University Football game. MP3 audio file downloads are updated each week and are now free at ISU Football MP3 Audio Archives.

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