Bearkat Men Basketball Defeats Future SLC Member HBU
Courtesy: Paul Ridings, Jr., SHSU Sports Information
Houston – Nathaniel Mason scored 22 points to lead Sam Houston State to a 69-57 men’s basketball non-conference victory over Houston Baptist Saturday night.
The Bearkats never trailed, taking a 5-0 lead in the opening minutes on a three-pointer by DeMarcus Gatlin and a jumper by Mason. The victory ups SHSU’s season record to 4-5.
Gatlin also scored in double figures for the Kats, totaling 17 points. Both Mason and Gatlin went 5-of-9 from the field. Mason hit three treys while Gatlin sank one three-pointer.
Art Bernardi led Houston Baptist with 17 points.
Marquel McKinney and Michael Holyfield each added seven points for the Bearkats. Holyfield led SHSU with nine rebounds.
The Bearkats now take a break for final exams. The Sam Houston men return to action Saturday, Dec. 15 when they travel to Birmingham, Ala., to face Samford.
Sam Houston returns to Bernard G. Johnson Coliseum for the next men’s home game Wednesday, Dec. 19, against Huston-Tillotson.
Bearkat Women’s Basketball Falls To South Alabama
Courtesy: Paul Ridings, Jr., SHSU Sports Information
Mobile, Ala. – Senior forward Sequeena Thomas produced her 37th career game with double figure points and rebounds in a 71-61 loss to South Alabama Saturday night at the Mitchell Center.
Thomas led Sam Houston with 14 points and 10 rebounds. The Bearkats dropped to 2-5 for the season with the loss.
Camille Reynolds scored 14 points to lead South Alabama which now stands 7-3 for the year.
Thomas was one of four Bearkats in double figures. Jasmine Johnson scored 12 points, Britni Martin added 11 and Chanice Smith scored 10.
Sam Houston led 33-30 at halftime but South Alabama rallied to outscore the Kats 41-28 in the second period. The Bearkats shot 36 percent from the field, going 23-of-64, but their three point game was off as SHSU hit only 3-of-17 from beyond the arc.
The Bearkat women will take a break for finals this week before returning to action Sunday, Dec. 16 with a road contest at TCU in Fort Worth.
Bearkats Hit The Road Again To Face #2 Seeded Eastern Washington
Courtesy: Paul Ridings, Jr., SHSU Sports Information
Sam Houston State will face Eastern Washington at 3 p.m. (Central time) Saturday, Dec. 15, at Roos Field in Cheney, Washington, in the NCAA Division I Football Championships semifinals.
The game will be nationally televised by ESPNU.
Eagles quarterback Kyle Padron passed for 358 yards and six touchdowns to lead Eastern Washington to a 51-35 victory over Illinois State Saturday evening in the NCAA quarterfinals.
Sam Houston defeated Montana State 34-16 Friday night in Bozeman to earn its semifinal berth.
Eastern Washington stood No. 4 in the final regular season FCS rankings and is the No. 2 seed in the NCAA Division I Football Championships.
The game marks Sam Houston’s third appearance in the semifinals and the second year in a row the Bearkats have reached the Championships final four.
Ranked No. 5 in the final regular season rankings and unseeded in the playoffs, Sam Houston defeated Cal Poly 18-16 in Huntsville in the second round. Last year, Sam Houston punched its ticket for the NCAA Division I championship finals at FC Dallas Stadium in Frisco with a 31-28 victory over Montana in the semifinals in Huntsville.
Eastern Washington and Sam Houston State’s only previous football meeting came in the NCAA quarterfinals in 2004, a contest voted by Bearkat football fans as SHSU’s “Game of the Decade” in a poll by www.gobearkats.com in 2009.
Down 20 points with 14 minutes to play on Dec. 4, 2004, in Cheney, quarterback Dustin Long led a Kat rally that ended with the winning touchdown and PAT on the final play of the game.
Jason Mathenia caught a school record 13 passes for 226 yards and Long threw for 478 yards and three touchdowns for a 35-34 SHSU victory over the No. 14 ranked Eagles.
Up 34-14 with 14:59 left, Eastern Washington had a chance to put the game away with a field goal with less than a minute to play.
Vincent Cartwright, a 6-5 receiver on his first special teams play of the season, blocked the potential field goal.
Long took the Bearkats 43 yards in 43 seconds, hitting Mathenia for gains of 12, 19 and 16 yards to move the ball to the EWU seven with two seconds to play. Mathenia caught the tying TD pass on a slant five yards deepin the end zone and Lance Garner kicked the winning PAT with no time left on the clock.
No.5 Bearkats Slaughters #3 Seeded Bobcats In FCS Quarterfinals
Courtesy: Paul Ridings, Jr., SHSU Sports Information
Bozeman, Montana – Quarterback Brian Bell passed for 254 yards and three touchdowns to lead No. 5- ranked Sam Houston State to a 34-16 victory over No. 2 Montana State Friday night.
The victory puts the Bearkats in the semifinals of the NCAA Division I Football Championships against the winner of Saturday’s Eastern Washington versus Illinois State contest in Cheney, Wash.
Sam Houston upped its season record to 10-3 while Montana State falls to 11-2.
The win marked the second year in a row the Bearkats have earned their semifinal berth with a victory over Montana State.
Last year, Sam Houston won 49-13 in the quarterfinals in Huntsville. SHSU went on to win in the semifinals and reach the national finals in Frisco.
In this year’s win over Montana State, the Bearkats again produced big plays on both offense and defense to advance.
Trey Diller caught a 56-yard touchdown pass from Bell and Chance Nelson had scoring receptions of 16 and 45 yards.
Bell completed 11 of 21 passes.
The 254 yards marked his third highest passing total as the Bearkats’ quarterback.
Nelson ended the game with five receptions for 89 yards. Diller had three catches for 104 yards.
Timothy Flanders led the Bearkat ground game, carrying 31 times for 106 yards.
The performance is Flanders’ 24th career100-yard rushing game and his ninth during the 2012 season.
Both marks are Sam Houston school records.
The Bearkats totaled 458 yards with 204 coming on the ground and 254 in the air.
The Sam Houston defense produced two turnovers and five quarterback sacks as the Kats limited Montana State to 72 yards rushing and 292 yards total offense.
Kenneth Jenkins picked off an interception and Andrew Weaver recovered a fumble.
Weaver and Darius Taylor each accounted for two sackes and Gary Lorance picked up the fifth.
Jenkins’ interception at the Montana State 49-yard line set up Miguel Antonio’s 24-yard field goal eight-and-a-half minutes into the game.
Bell hit Sincere for a 38-yard pass to the MSU four-yard line for the long strike in the six-play, 42-yard drive.
The Bobcats responded with a 10-play 62-yard drive for a 27-yard field goal by Rory Perez with 49 seconds remaining in the opening quarter.
A 33-yard run by McGhee to the Bearkat 11-yard line set up the scoring play.
Sincere scored the game’s first touchdown with a 12-yard run as the Bearkats went up 10-3 with 12:29 left in the second quarter.
The tally completed an eight-play 79-yard drive.
Diller got the drive started with a 21-yard reception.
Flanders moved the ball to the Bobcat 24 with a 27-yard run.
Bell hit Chance Nelson for 11 to the MSU 12 on a key third down play.
After a three-and-out by Montana State, the Bearkats struck quickly to go up 17-3 as Bell found Trey Diller open over the middle for a 56-yard scoring pass with 9:41 remaining the half to complete a four-play 68-yard drive.
Sam Houston closed out the half with a 12-play 74-yard drive that took 4:31 as Antonio kicked a 17-yard field to allow the Bearkats to take a 20-3 lead into the locker room at intermission.
Montana State went 75 yards in 11 plays to open the second half with McGhee capping off with an 8-yard touchdown run.
After the extra point failed, the Bobcats had trimmed the lead to 20-9 with 9:10 to go in the third quarter.
Matt Foster pinned the Bobcats at their own three with a 35-yard punt.
Three plays later, Dax Swanson forced a fumble recovered by Weaver.
The Kats took one play to up their lead to 27-9 as Bell hit Nelson in the right corner of the end zone for a 16-yard pass with 2:49 to play in the third.
Bell found Nelson wide open again for a 45-yard touchdown to put Sam Houston ahead 34-9 with 12:18 left in the final quarter.
The scoring drive covered 74 yards in seven plays.
McGhee led the Bobcats on a six-play 91-yard drive, hitting Jon Ellis for a 12-yard touchdown with 5:25 remaining, cutting the SHSU margin to 34-16.
But it was a too little, too late as the Bearkats ran out the clock to seal the victory.
Playoff Fever Spreading In Huntsville, TX
by Cheval John
NCAA FCS playoff fever has spread throughout the nation.
It’s not more evident than in the city of Huntsville, TX.
Huntsville, home of Sam Houston State University with a population of about 39,000, have been in a frenzy since the Bearkat football team have made the FCS playoffs for the second consecutive year after finishing the season at 8-3 overall and claimed a share of the Southland Conference title.
Now, they are one game away from returning to the FCS national championship game after they slaughtered Montana State Bobcats 34-15 in Bozeman, Montana last Friday.
Bearkat fans gathered either in Huntsville area bars or across the country (in the case of SHSU’s alumni base) to watch the matchup between the Bearkats and Bobcats that was televised nationally on ESPN2.
Many people who have lived in Huntsville and have been around to see the Bearkat athletic teams have said that they have not seen anything like this.
They have good reason to say that because before, the Bearkat football team have made the playoffs a total of four times since becoming a member of the NCAA Division I in 1986.
Those four playoff appearances happened in 1986, 1991, 2001, and 2004 under Ron Randleman.
After Randleman’s retirement in 2004, Todd Whitten served as head coach from 2005-2009 without much success and was fired.
When SHSU’s athletic director, Bobby Williams hired Willie Fritz, many were hoping for a renaissance of the football program.
After a 6-5 campaign in 2010, people started to believe that great things was going to happen in his second year.
Before the 2011 season began, the SLC’s pre-season polls expected the Bearkats to finished fourth in the conference because they only had 12 seniors on the team.
The Bearkats did the opposite: finished the regular season at 11-0, won their fourth SLC title (first undisputed), were the No.1 seed in the FCS playoffs and brought the Bearkat nation together.
From there, they defeated No. 7 Stony Brook, Montana State and Montana to reach the title game in Frisco, TX where they fell short against North Dakota State.
With the playoff fever amidst in Huntsville, the Bearkats know that they have to play extremely well against No.2 seeded Eastern Washington on Saturday at 3 p.m. if they want to make it back to Frisco.
What they also know is that playoff fever is amdst in Huntsville with a loyal fan base with who will be watching them on ESPNU and cheering them on to victory.
Share this: