Box Score BROWNWOOD – Wayland Baptist took advantage of six turnovers and again got solid performances from all three phases as the Pioneers rolled to a 44-34 win over Howard Payne at Gordon Wood Stadium here Saturday afternoon.
"We found a way to win," Wayland coach
Butch Henderson said after the Pioneers (2-0) roared to a 44-13 lead then came up big defensively down the stretch.
Quarterback
Payson Bain threw for 233 yards and three touchdowns,
Kaleen Jones intercepted two passes including a pick-six, and
Daniel Martinez booted three more field goals – including a 55-yarder – to help lift the Pioneers to a 2-0 record for the first time since restarting the program four years ago.
"We made big plays to get that lead, and we found a way to win," Henderson said. "Last year we played our guts out and did lots of good things but we never learned how to win. Today we found a way to get it done."
The Pioneers scored on their first five possessions of the game, starting when Martinez booted 22- and 55-yard field goals, the latter a yard short of matching the school record he set in a season-opening 42-5 win over Southwestern College (Kan.) two weeks ago.
After Howard Payne (0-2) took a 7-6 lead, Bain hooked up with
Josh Bailey for his first touchdown of the day, a 20-yarder on the second play of the second quarter to put WBU on top for good.
Four plays after
Alden Mann's fumble recovery near midfield,
V.J. Gamez got loose on a 34-yard run to make it 20-7.
It took the Pioneers less than a minute to add to their lead when
Brenner Barnett forced a fumble on the kickoff return, which
Brandon Sheppard recovered at the HPU 3-yard line. A penalty pushed the Pioneers back, but it didn't matter when Bain found
Preston Woodard for a 16-yard scoring strike.
Less than three minutes into the second period, WBU led it, 27-7.
The Yellow Jackets put up a pair of field goals, one before halftime when it was 27-10 and one after. That's when Jones came up with his first interception, returning it 44 yards for a touchdown and making it 34-13 early in the third.
Another fumble, this one forced by Mann, led to Martinez's final field goal from 42 yards. Yet another Wayland takeaway – Jones' second interception of the afternoon – gave the Pioneers the ball near midfield. On the next play, Bain found
Devonte Hayden who took it 51 yards for Wayland's final points of the game.
"When you make big plays, you're going to win football games," Henderson said.
With 6:15 left in the third, the Pioneers had things well in hand, 44-13.
But the Yellow Jackets didn't fold, scoring three more touchdowns to make it interesting. HPU's final score cut Wayland's lead to 10 with 9:17 still left.
Howard Payne got within less than a yard of scoring again, but Wayland's defense came up big. The Yellow Jackets had it first-and-goal at the 8, but the Pioneers got stops from
Adam Taylor,
Richard Parham II,
Ernesto Monreal,
Ernest Asibey, Mann and, on fourth down from inside the 1,
Brayden Burgess. Monreal ended with a team-high 14 tackles, followed by
Quinton Shafer with 12, Asibey with 10,
Micah Swanson with nine, and Parham with eight.
Wayland's defense held once again at its own 36-yard line when HPU threw three straight incompletions. The Yellow Jacket offense got it back one more time, and the Pioneer defense answered the ball one last time. HPU missed a 29-yard field goal with 11 seconds left.
"Some things we did well, other things we wanted to do better, but the main thing is we found a way to win," Henderson said. "We did a great job forcing turnovers, Daniel's field goals, those things you feed off of. All the other things will come."
