Box Score
Six turnovers and a couple of special teams miscues haunted Wayland Baptist on Saturday afternoon as the Pioneers dropped their 2016 home-opener to Sul Ross State, 48-27.
"We saw some really good things, but you just can't have all of those turnovers," Wayland coach
Butch Henderson said. "Between the fumbles and botched punts, you put all that together and we had eight or nine turnovers. You can't win like that."
Wayland (1-1) trailed 20-0 midway through the second quarter but came back to make a game of it. The Pioneers were within two scores, 41-27, with plenty of time left in the fourth, but the Lobos (1-1) tacked on another score late to put it out of reach.
Adding injury to insult, the Pioneers also played without some key personnel, including quarterback
Payson Bain who was hurt on Wayland's second series of the game. All-American linebacker
Alden Mann did not see the field.
Sul Ross scored its first touchdown on a 40-yard pass to a wide-open Byron Jones on the first play after Wayland's first of five fumbles just over four minutes into the game. The Pioneers gave it away on their next two possessions, too, but the WBU defense was able to deny the Lobos any points.
The Lobos did score, however, after a blocked punt on the second play of the second quarter.
SRSU made it 20-0 on its next possession when the Lobos scored on a 6-yard run following a 56-yard pass completion.
Wayland got in on the takeaways when Brian Johnson intercepted a pass at the SRSU 29-yard line. Back-up quarterback
Mitchell Parsley, a sophomore, turned it into a touchdown when he hooked up with
Preston Woodard on a 3-yard scoring toss with 3:12 left before the half, making it 20-7.
But about the time it looked like the Pioneers were gaining some momentum, a high snap over punter
Trey Rowe's head rolled from near midfield all the way back to just outside the Wayland end zone where SRSU's Byron Jones picked it up and took it in for a score. With 54 seconds left before intermission, the Lobos extended their lead to 27-7.
"When you turn the ball over like we did today it puts you in a bind," Henderson said.
The Pioneers managed to get those points back thanks to a hurry-up offense that took just three plays to go 63 yards. The pay-off play was a 39-yard pass from Parsley to
Trey Rowe with only 24 seconds left in the first half.
The first points of the second half came after a Wayland interception that set up the Lobos at the Wayland 32-yard line. Four plays later it was 34-14.
A 28-yard punt return by
Devonte Hayden put the Pioneers in good field position for its next touchdown that came on a 23-yard run by
De'Sean Johnson, getting Wayland back to within a pair of scores, 34-20.
The Lobos answered with a long drive, however, and stretched the lead to 41-20 before the Pioneers came back with a TD on the strength of a 35-yard kickoff return by
Preston Woodard followed by a 15-yard penalty that gave Wayland the ball inside SRSU territory. On fourth-and-goal at the 1, Parsley kept it for the TD, and Wayland was back within two scores with more than nine minutes left.
An interception by Wayland's
Travis White deep inside Pioneer territory gave Wayland's offense a chance to further trim the deficit, but a fumble following a long run by
Jerrell Peterson all but did in the Pioneers' comeback hopes. If that didn't, a 27-yard touchdown run by the Lobos' Andre Wilson with under 2:00 left did.
Wayland ended with more first downs (27-20) and total yards (404-394) than the Lobos, but the turnovers were the determining factor.
"We outgained them and had more first downs. You can have all that, but you can't put yourself in bad position like we did with the turnovers," Henderson said.
It was the second straight year the Pioneers were plagued by turnovers against the Lobos. Last season, Wayland turned it over eight times, muffed a kickoff and had a blocked punt returned for a touchdown in a 54-46 loss.
Peterson, a redshirt freshman from Mansfield, rushed for 155 yards on 23 carries. Parsley completed 16-of-35 passes for 220 yards and two touchdowns. Rowe caught seven passes for 108 yards and one TD. On defense, senior cornerback
Brandon Sheppard led Wayland with eight tackles, including five solo stops.
Wayland also plays its next two games at home, taking on Howard Payne for homecoming on Sept. 17 followed by Webber International (Fla.) on Sept. 24. Both games start at 2 p.m. Howard Payne is 0-2 this season, having lost at home to Southwestern Assemblies of God, 27-21, and in Sherman on Saturday to Austin College, 19-17.
"We had some bright spots that we will take and go build on," Henderson said.
Â
