SHSU smokes Bobcats
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Richard Sincere had a career game, and Sam Houston State dominated the battle of rushing offenses.
- "Elvis Akpla"
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Richard Sincere had a career game, and Sam Houston State dominated the battle of rushing offenses.
Sincere rushed for a career-high 160 yards and two touchdowns on 11 carries as Sam Houston State piled up a season-high 428 rushing yards on Saturday in beating Montana State 49-13 in a Football Championship Subdivision quarterfinal game.
“Richard was on fire,” Sam Houston State coach Willie Fritz said. “He did a sensational job of reading the option and doing what he needed to and pitching it when he needed to. He did a super job.”
The top-seeded Bearkats (13-0) will host Montana in the semifinals either next Friday or Saturday. It marks the first trip to the semis for Sam Houston since Montana defeated the Bearkats 34-13 in 2004. The Grizzlies (11-2) beat Northern Iowa 48-10 Friday night to advance to next week’s game.
Sincere caught two passes for 43 yards and a touchdown, while Torrance Williams rushed for 99 yards and two touchdowns on five carries for the Bearkats.
“We wanted to come out and start fast and find some way to get to next week, so we can be 1-0 again,” Sincere said. “We had a good game plan. We had different personnel packages and different people in motion to try to get them out of their game.”
Brian Bell rushed for 63 yards and a touchdown on four carries for Sam Houston State, and threw for 73 yards and another score.
The Bobcats (10-3) gained just 77 yards on the ground against Sam Houston — Montana State’s second-lowest rushing total for the season.
“We have very diverse packages that we run at different times,” Fritz said. “We blitz them, we zone blitz them. We have a lot of different coverages. We got them into third-and-12 or third-and-14, and when we did that, we did a good job of mixing things up.”
DeNarius McGhee was 21 of 36 for 272 yards and a touchdown and Elvis Akpla caught six passes for 100 yards for Montana State, which reached the FCS quarterfinals by defeating New Hampshire 26-25 last week with the help of a blocked extra point in the final seconds.
Sam Houston State blew the game open in the third quarter with 21 points. The Bearkats have now outscored their opponents 177-24 in the third quarter this season.
“We played great in the third quarter all season long,” Fritz said. “We did a good job coming in making adjustments and coming out and executing them. I don’t think we started the game as fast we wanted to. We played lights out from (the third quarter) on.”
The Bobcats found the end zone to start the second half, as McGhee’s 7-yard pass to Everett Gilbert capped a 77-yard drive. But the Bearkats’ Brandon Closner returned the kickoff 82 yards for a touchdown to make it 28-13, and Sam Houston added two more scores in the third quarter.
“The big play was the kickoff return,” Montana State coach Rob Ash said. “We came out and got us a good drive and scored, and then they got the kickoff return that was the big play because it instantly changed the score back to a big lead.”
MTST 3 3 7 0 — 13
SHST 7 14 21 7 — 49
First Quarter
MTST—Jason Cunningham 27 field goal, 9:04.
SHST—Grant Merritt 11 pass from Brian Bell (Craig Alaniz kick), 4:50.
Second Quarter
MTST—Cunningham 22 field goal, 14:52.
SHST—Bell 54 run (Alaniz kick), 12:03.
SHST—Richard Sincere 40 pass from Bell (Alaniz kick), 2:31.
Third Quarter
MTST—Everett Gilbert 7 pass from DeNarius McGhee (Cunningham kick), 10:52.
SHST—Brandon Closner 82 kickoff return (Alaniz kick), 10:41.
SHST—Ryan Wilson 1 run (Alaniz kick), 7:39.
SHST—Torrance Williams 56 run (Alaniz kick), 5:10.
Fourth Quarter
SHST—T.Williams 21 run (Alaniz kick), 9:12.
A—9,077.
TEAM STATISTICS MTST SHST
First downs 18 19
Rushes-yards 34-77 41-428
Passing 272 73
Comp-Att-Int 21-36-1 5-12-1
Return Yards 0 36
Punts-Avg. 5-41.2 2-25.0
Fumbles-Lost 1-1 1-0
Penalties-Yards 5-33 5-38
Time of Possession 32:31 27:29
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING: MTST, Tray Robinson 11-42, Cody Kirk 12-22, Everett Gilbert 4-13, DeNarius McGhee 7-0. SHST, Richard Sincere 11-160, Torrance Williams 5-99, Brian Bell 4-63, Keyshawn Hill 5-47, Tim Flanders 10-38, Ryan Wilson 5-23.
PASSING: MTST, McGhee 21-36-1, 272. SHST, Bell 5-12-1, 73.
RECEIVING: MTST, Elvis Akpla 6-100, John Ellis 4-55, Kirk 3-36, Gilbert 2-11, Kruiz Siewing 1-46, Shane Robison 1-9, Tanner Bleskin 1-8, Tray Robinson 1-6, Brian Flotkoetter 1-1, Tiai Salanoa 1-0. SHST, Sincere 2-43, Trey Diller 2-19, Grant Merritt 1-11.
Tags: college football, montana state, sports, football
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