SHSU Defeated SFA 42-28 In “Battle Of The Piney Woods” Rivalry
By Cheval John
It was no surprise that everything was at stake between archrivals Sam Houston State and Stephen F. Austin in the 89th edition of “The Battle of the Piney Woods.”
Both teams were a part of a five-way tie for first place in the Southland Conference (SLC).
The winner of this matchup would have control of their own destiny and have a chance to play for a SLC title.
And for the fourth straight year since the game moved to Reliant Stadium (now NRG Stadium), home of the Houston Texans, the Bearkats defeated the Lumberjacks 42-28.
The Bearkats dominated the Lumberjacks with their running game and strong defense.
“First of all, congratulations to Sam Houston. They are a fine team,” SFA head coach Clint Conque said. “Certainly, they deserved to win the way they played. It was pretty obvious everybody didn’t play their best game tonight on the defensive side of the football and execution on offense. Congratulations to those guys. We certainly have to play better, but we didn’t do that today.”
Senior running back Keshawn Hill torched SFA’s defense with 156 yards and four touchdowns on 14 carries.
Hill became one of four Bearkats to score four touchdowns in one game.
Sophomore quarterback Jared Johnson, who had the other rushing touchdown, had 140 yards on 13 carries and completed 6 of his 17 passes for 127 yards and no interceptions.
Though the Bearkats gave up 516 yards of total offense, SFA shot themselves in the foot with penalties that would have made this game a lot closer.
In the opening drive of the game, the Lumberjacks (3-2 SLC, 6-3 overall) seemingly had scored the first touchdown.
But an illegal shift penalty on Aaron Thomas nullified the touchdown and a few plays later, SFA had to punt the football.
On SHSU’s first possession Johnson connected with Hill for 13 yards for a first down.
After Hill rushed for 8 yards to the Bearkat 41 yard line, he ran for a 59 yard touchdown to make it 7-0.
The Lumberjacks tied it up at 7 after Trey Vallier recovered a fumble in the end zone for a touchdown.
Both teams exchanged scores that made it 14 with 7:32 left in the second quarter.
Hill scored his third touchdown of the game with 26 seconds left in the second quarter to give SHSU a 21-14 lead.
“That’s one of the benefits of being up tempo,” Bearkat head coach K.C. Keeler said. “We’re comfortable no matter how much time is left on the clock. It just doesn’t bother us. You give a minute, we’ll take it. You give us 30 seconds, we’ll take it. I think that helps being uptempo. We had all of our time outs available. We felt comfortable that we could go down and make a play.”
Sam Houston picked up from where they left off in the third quarter when Hill broke loose for a 32 yard touchdown run that made it 28-14.
That play was set up earlier when Johnson connected with Yedidiah Louis for 42 yards.
The Bearkats increased their lead to 35-14 after Hill scored his fourth touchdown.
Though the Lumberjacks cut the lead to 35-21 after a 1-yard touchdown run by Conque on a 13 play, 86 yard drive, it was too late as they could not recover from the onslaught of the Bearkats.
