Eagles’ Paul, Jackson ground and pound Miners

For the past three football season openers, CSC’s football team defeated Missouri Science & Technology. Winning 40-27 last Thursday, the Eagles held the Miners of Rolla, Missouri, to only 100 yards in the first half and shut out the Miners 17-0 going into halftime.

Redshirt freshman TD Stein, quarterback of Chadron, completed 17 of 26 passes for 206 yards, including one touchdown, in the competition. He also rushed for 27 yards on five carries.

“TD Stein played really well in his first collegiate start,” team captain and wide receiver Danny O’Boyle, senior of Gering, said.

Derek Jackson, sophomore tailback of Pueblo West, Colorado, scored three touchdowns on 12 carries for 44 yards. But Cody Paul, junior tailback of Seal Beach, California, led CSC with 132 rushing yards on 19 carries. Paul also crossed into the end zone once in the fourth quarter.

Team captain and wide receiver Kyle Vinich, senior of Casper, Wyoming, caught a pass in the second quarter to add six to the scoreboard. Vinich marked 70 yards on four receptions.

“I was very happy with how things went overall against Missouri S&T on both sides of the ball,” Vinich said. “As team we now know we need to put an emphasis on finishing when it comes to the fourth quarter.”

O’Boyle led receivers with six passes and 75 yards.

“I thought our offense came out strong and put some good drives together while our defense was very stingy and made a ton of stops,” O’Boyle said. “I am pleased with a win to start out the season. We played pretty well throughout the game, but I feel we should’ve been a little bit stronger in the fourth quarter. Our defense looked fast and physical and got us some key turnovers, which is always helpful. Overall, I liked what we did as a team in our first game. We’re nowhere near where we want to be, so we’re going to keep practicing hard and studying film in order to be the best we can be.”

Defensively, redshirt freshman and safety, Kirk Durtsche, of Casper, Wyoming, tied with Dylan Furrier, senior of Tucson, Arizona, with nine tackles in the match-up.

Furrier, a team captain last season and this season, was named to the RMAC All-Conference Second Team and the Omaha World Herald All-Star Team last season. He led the team with 118 tackles and has a total of 231 career tackles, which is only 68 tackles away from being in the top-10 leading tacklers for CSC.

This season, Furrier was named to the RMAC Preseason All-Conference Team. Two other Eagles were named to the same team: Paul, and Daniel Sotelo, senior offensive lineman of Grand Island.

Senior Cole Montgomery, team captain and safety of Casper, Wyoming; and senior cornerback KamRon Tomlinson, of Grandview, Missouri, each snagged an interception in the game.

“It was a lot of guys’ first college game and we saw a lot of good things from the younger guys that played a lot for us,” Montgomery said. “And the veterans looked like veterans. They all played crisp and everyone was having fun.”

Randy Wentz, junior kicker of Scottsbluff, made two field goals—33 yarder in first quarter and 34 yarder in fourth quarter—and four PATs. Wentz completed 12 of his 13 field goal attempts last season.

“We had some moments where we let off the gas a little (against S&T), which we never want to do,” Montgomery said. “But it was the first game and everyone learned some good things overall that we can clean up and be even better. I thought TD Stein had a good game overall and made the throws he needed to. Our run game was solid, as always. Cody and DJ were great and Kevin Coy made his mark. I don’t think our O-line gets enough credit of how dominant they can be either.

“Defensively, we had a lot of guys making plays. It’s nice getting Brian Wood back into the mix in the secondary and up front the D-line and linebackers had a pretty solid game wire to wire,” Montgomery said.

For the first time in history, the Eagles are on the road to play against Division I Missouri State University of Springfield, Missouri.

The game is scheduled for 1 p.m., MST, Saturday, and ESPN 3 will broadcast the matchup online. The video can be found at http://es.pn/1VCXJqv.