Early game woes continue for Eagles

Mistakes cost Chadron State’s football team in the first half against the Colorado State-Pueblo Thunderwolves, Saturday, but unlike their game with Black Hills State University a week prior, the Eagles were unable to overcome their early deficit. 

After being held off the score sheet after two quarters, the Eagles managed three scores in the second half, but the Thunderwolves spoiled CSC’s home opener with a convincing 42-21 win.

The game was an opportunity for the Eagles to make a significant mark early after entering the season ranked third in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference’s Pre-Season Coaches Poll. Instead, they received their first loss while under the lights of Elliott Field for the first time this season. 

“There’s some positives in this game,” CSC Head Coach Jay Long said after the game. “The biggest thing is, when you lose a game like this that we put a lot of effort into it hurts. And it needs to hurt. If it doesn’t hurt we were not working hard enough.”

During the first two weeks of the season, the Thunderwolves have been ranked ninth nationally in the 2019 AFCA Division II Coaches’ Top 25 Poll.

“They’re a top-10 team for a reason,” Long said. “They won a national title a few years ago for a reason. They’re always one of the top teams in the country and today they showed that.”

Errors were costly for the Eagles early, particularly a set of punting mistakes that gave the Thunderwolves good offensive field position throughout the first half. 

CSC was forced to punt during eight of nine of their first-half drives with half being kicks of three, negative six, 12 and 11 yards due to three bad snaps and a shank. 

Speaking after the game, Long took blame for the miscues. 

“That’s on me as a coach,” he said. “We have to make sure that our snappers and punter have urgency behind what they’re doing.” 

Punter Will Morgan, senior of Fort Collins, Colorado, has punted 10 times this season with an average of just 21.9 yards and a long of 47. 

“He’s a 40-plus (yard) punter,” Long said. “We just have to get everything working together – snap, punt and protection. It’s not just Will’s fault and we’ll get it fixed.”

Pueblo started drives inside Chadron territory four times during the first two quarters, but despite the box score, the Eagles’ defense played well relative to the situations they found themselves in. 

Pressured, and often in their own territory, the CSC defense held the Thunderwolves to four TDs and a field goal in the first half. It could have been worse but they forced Pueblo to punt twice and miss a field goal from 37 yards out. 

In the second half, Eagle redshirt freshman Justin Cauley, of Venice, California, forced a fumble on the kickoff that Morgan recovered. Six plays later, quarterback Dalton Holst, junior of Gillette, Wyoming, found wide receiver Tevon Wright, senior of Miami, who scored from nine yards out to make it 29-7 Thunderwolves. 

Pueblo answered the drive with a seven-play, 81 yard TD drive capped by a 10-yard rush by running back D.J. Penick, junior of Evanston, Illinois, to extend their lead 36-7. 

With a little over five minutes remaining in the third quarter, Holst found Jackson Dickerson, senior of Chadron, for a 54-yard touchdown to make it 36-14. 

From there, Pueblo answered with a 10-play, 78 yard scoring possession and neither team would score again until with less than a minute in the game, CSC’s Priest Jennings, junior of Stockton, California, found a hole in the Thunderwolves’ defense  and took the ball 56 yards to make it 42-21.

The Eagles managed to out gain Pueblo, netting 449 yards to the Thunderwolves 421. Holst completed 21 of 44 passes for 293 yards and two TDs. He was intercepted once and sacked twice. 

Cole Thurness, junior of Rapid City, South Dakota, led the Eagles’ receiving corps with 102 yards on seven receptions, including a long of 33. Teammates Wright and Dickerson had the team’s only receiving touchdowns. Dickerson went 76 yards on four receptions and Wright had 57 on six. 

Jennings averaged 8.7 yards per carry thanks in large part to his 56-yard run at the end of the game. He had nine carries for 79 yards. Sophomore Elijah Myles, Hawthorne, California, of  carried 17 times for 58 yards. 

Travis Wilson, junior of Fresno, California, led the team with 14 tackles, 10 of which were solo. Tyler Lewis, senior of Arvada, Colorado, was next best with 8. 

Next on the schedule for the Eagles is a road game with Fort Lewis College this Saturday in Durango, Colorado.