Final Stats

CEDAR CITY, Utah - For the second straight game Southern Utah's young Thunderbird football team played tough with a highly-regarded opponent through three quarters but for the second straight game they came up short in the fourth period.

Just as it did last week at Northern Arizona, SUU played Stephen F. Austin basically even through the first three periods only to see the Lumberjacks pull away in the fourth for a 40-17 victory.

Bobby Pond caught a 26-yard touchdown pass from Wes Marshall early in the fourth to pull the Thunderbirds within 20-17 with 13:04 to play. SUU forced the `Jacks to punt on their next possession, and had a chance to take the lead but SFA held, forcing the Thunderbirds into a punt of their own. Brandon Perkins' punt pinned the `Jacks deep, at their own 15-yard line, but quarterback Zeke Dixon completed three passes of 26, 25 and 30 yards to set up a seven yard Louie Runnels run for a touchdown and a 26-17 SFA lead with 8:28 to play.

On its ensuing possession SUU went three-and-out from its own 25 and Perkins punt was blocked as Kenneth Boley bull-rushed up the middle, blocked the kick into the end zone and recovered it for a 33-17 SFA edge. The Lumberjacks then ran down the clock, adding a final score when Runnels ran one yard to cap a 10-play, 66-yard drive.

"I'm frustrated," SUU Coach Wes Meier said. "We needed a win, we put ourselves in a position to win and I really think we could have won but we didn't execute at the end.

"We played well down-to-down through most of the game, but we gave up too many big plays and made to many mistakes, again," he added. "There's no way we should give up that blocked punt. We had them in third and long situations several times but weren't able to capitalize, and those are the kinds of things that drive you crazy. We did a better job tonight with penalties, but the ones we had really hurt us."

For the second straight week, however, the defense played well and the team improved its offensive numbers. SUU finished with a season-high 317 total yards, including a season-best 100 on the ground. Fullback Gordon Reid led the way with 41 rushing yards on five attempts, while quarterback Wes Marshall had 78 yards on the ground but was sacked four times for 33 yards in losses for a net of 33. freshman tailback Kyle Coop tacked on 26 yards.

Marshall was also productive throwing the ball. Although he was intercepted three times and completed just 13-of-43 attempts his receivers dropped numerous balls and he was under a seemingly constant rush. He finished the game with a career-best (albeit in only a two-game career) 217 passing yards and a pair of touchdown tosses, to Pond and to Ryan Larsen to give SUU a 10-7 first-quarter lead.

"Wes threw those picks but he really did a pretty good job for us," Meier said. "We dropped a lot of balls and he was under a lot of pressure from their defense. You have to remember he's only played in two college games; he's young and he's going to make some mistakes but I think he's making a lot of progress."

Dixon completed 16-of-33 passes for 290 yards and two scores, while runnels finished with 67 yards and two TDs rushing.

Steve Smith led SUU with 11 tackles and a tackle for loss while Ryan Luedecke led SFA with 11 stops and two TFLs. Matt Hammer also notched his first career interception for the Thunderbirds.