TAHLEQUAH –
Zac King caught five passes for 93 yards and
Dimonic McKinzy threw three touchdowns as Northeastern State beat Nebraska-Kearney 31-21 at Doc Wadley Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
The RiverHawks went up 24 points in the contest with NSU's defense stifling the Lopers to only 57 yards of offense in the first half.
"We did some awesome things in the first half and they (UNK) made some good adjustments in the second half," said head coach
Rob Robinson. "Our kids battled back, both sides faced some adversity and fought through it."
"We scored when we needed a score and we got a stop when we needed a stop but it was just good to get the guys back on the winning track."
Saturday's contest picked up in the final 20 minutes with UNK scoring 21 unanswered points to get within a field goal early in the fourth quarter. The RiverHawks dagger came on a 75-yard drive that ended with an 18-yard pass to
Matthew Butler to make it a two-possession 31-21 contest at the 8:29-mark.
The Lopers did get within field goal distance with five minutes to go and the 57-yard attempt had the distance but dinged off of the right upright. From there, NSU could just run out the clock with the ten-point lead at-hand.
Northeastern State had 464 yards of total offense with a season high 171 coming on the ground.
Ra'Keim Abdul made 28 attempts and ran for 93 yards with a touchdown and
C.J. Shavers picked up the ball ten times for 56 yards.
In the air, Northeastern State spread the ball around with three different receivers catching a TD pass from McKinzy.
Decoryan Holman had two catches for 67 yards and NSU's biggest play of the afternoon on a 46-yard catch in the opening quarter.
McKinzy went 15-for-31 in the air with 293 yards to move four short of the 2000 yard plateau this season; with three remaining games to go he has a shot to surpass Johnny Deaton's program season record of 2,520 that was set in 2011.
"I thought early on Dom had some great throws,
Zac King came up with some big third down catches," added Robinson. "Overall in running the ball we were able to step it up on the offense."
On the defensive side of the ball,
Steffon Herd and
Devon Siers both had seven tackles; Siers would have his third interception of the season for 12-yards.
Tim Howard and
Quincy Dotson both had five tackles and a sack for the RiverHawks.
The Lopers would have 357 yards of total offense in the game with UNK's Steve Worthing going 18-for-33 in the air with no-touchdown passes.
Saturday's win is their second in a row over UNK and will bring the overall series record back in-favor of the RiverHawks 4-3. NSU will see their season and MIAA record go to 2-6 and the Lopers will fall to 1-7.
NSU will travel on the road to face Missouri Southern (1-7) next Saturday at 2 p.m., the Lions fell 63-21 at Central Oklahoma.
| Score by Quarters |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
Score |
| Nebraska-Kearney |
0 |
0 |
14 |
7 |
21 |
| Northeastern State |
10 |
7 |
7 |
7 |
31 |
Scoring Summary:
1st 11:21 NSU - Holman,Decoryan 46 yd pass from McKinzy,Dimonic (Garcia,Eddie kick), 9-75 3:39, UNK 0 - NSU 7
02:00 NSU - Garcia,Eddie 26 yd field goal, 8-56 3:31, UNK 0 - NSU 10
2nd 02:46 NSU - Eubanks,Rashawn 17 yd pass from McKinzy,Dimonic (Garcia,Eddie kick), 6-53 2:05, UNK 0 - NSU 17
3rd 09:18 NSU - Abdul,Ra'Keim 1 yd run (Garcia,Eddie kick), 11-43 5:09, UNK 0 - NSU 24
04:01 UNK - Worthing,Steve 2 yd run (Wentling,Brendan kick), 12-75 5:17, UNK 7 - NSU 24
01:10 UNK - Quinn,Luke 1 yd run (Wentling,Brendan kick), 6-73 2:10, UNK 14 - NSU 24
4th 12:11 UNK - Quinn,Luke 1 yd run (Wentling,Brendan kick), 5-76 1:49, UNK 21 - NSU 24
08:29 NSU - Butler,Matthew 18 yd pass from McKinzy,Dimonic (Garcia,Eddie kick), 10-75 3:42, UNK 21 - NSU 3
