GEORGETOWN, Texas – A great defensive effort helped a sluggish offense as the East Texas Baptist University football team came away with a 28-10 win over the Southwestern University Pirates in the American Southwest Conference opener. The defense only allowed one touchdown in the second quarter and no points in the second half.
Southwestern started with the football, but fumbled on the first play. It took ETBU six plays and 22 yards in 57 seconds to score their first touchdown on a 10 yard pass from
Dru Smith to
Dominic Haggerty. SU would cut the lead to 7-3 later in the first quarter capitalizing on an ETBU special teams miscue. The second quarter saw ETBU's defense force another fumble by SU. Later on, Smith would find
Xavier Gray for 66-yards and the touchdown putting ETBU up 14-3. The Pirates would answer with a touchdown of their own only to see ETBU drive down and score again as Smith connected with Gray for 11 yards and a 21-10 lead just before halftime.
The third quarter was scoreless as both defenses gave the other offense trouble. ETBU's defense did force two more fumbles, both of which were recovered by SU, and stopped the Pirates on two fourth-down conversions.
Beginning in the fourth quarter, ETBU got their fourth touchdown courtesy of
Terance Hargest. ETBU's defense then held on to the lead as time expired.
Overall, ETBU finished with 434 yards of total offense as Smith ended up going 26-of-42 with 333 passing yards and three touchdowns. Of the 101 yards on the ground,
Dominic Haggerty was the top rusher with 88 yards on 15 carries. Gray caught four passes for 133 yards receiving and two TDs while Jaquavian Dabbs added eight receptions for 86 yards.
Caleb Taylor was the top defender with 17 tackles (13 solo and four assisted). He also forced two fumbles and had three tackles for loss.
Ty Parsons also added 13 tackles (five solo and eight assisted).
After two weeks on the road with two road wins, ETBU finally returns home for their opener against Belhaven University next Saturday at 7:00 pm.
