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LiDarral Bailey.
Belton, TX – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor football team rode
LiDarral Bailey's career-best passing night and a timely turnover to hold off Wisconsin-La Crosse 27-20 in the 2011 season opener Saturday night in Belton. UMHB, ranked fifth in the country by D3football.com, is now 1-0 on the season. The loss drops the Eagles to 0-2 in the year.
UMHB would miss a 50-yard field goal try on its opening possession and turned the ball over when Derek Dreher picked off Bailey's pass on the second Cru possession. The Eagle offense would come to life with a 10-play, 84-yard drive capped by a 47-yard TD pass from Mike Butterfield to Lee Lauters with 2:41 left in the first quarter. UMHB came back to tie the game on
Darius Wilson's two-yard scoring run with 5:08 left in the first half. UMHB would take its first lead of the game on Bailey's 18-yard TD toss to
Tucker Glaske with 1:21 remaining in the first half. The Eagles answered with a quick strike offense, driving 82 yards in just six plays to tie the game just before halftime. Butterfield found Nate Ward for an 11-yard score with just 32 seconds left to play in the first half to send it to the break 14-14.
Chad Peevey's 46-yard field goal on the third quarter's opening possession put UMHB back on top 17-14. Butterfield found Jake Welch open deep for a 39-yard scoring strike, but a bad snap spoiled the extra point, leaving the UWL lead at 20-17. Wilson's second scoring run of the game, another two-yard plunge would give the lead back to UMHB at 24-20 with 12:27 to go in the game and Peevey added some insurance with a 23-yard field goal with 6:01 left to play. The Eagles would get one last shot, but
Bronson Shaw intercepted a Butterfield pass at the UMHB 35-yard line with 34 seconds remaining to clinch the win.
Bailey threw for a career-high 281 yards and set school single-game record with 22 completions. The 281 passing yards are the third-highest single-game total in school history. Bailey also rushed for 78 yards on 16 carries and set a new UMHB career record for rushing yards by a quarterback with 1,885, passing the old mark of 1,822 held by
Cody Fredenburg. Wilson ran for 88 yards on 21 carries and scored twice and
Damian Davis caught eight passes for 117 yards for the Cru.
Javicz Jones had a team-high 12 tackles for the Cru and became just the ninth player in school history to go over 200 career tackles.
Butterfield was 11-19 passing for La Crosse for 224 yards and three scores. Lauters ran for 86 yards on 20 carries and caught four passes for 60 yards. Jake Welch added four grabs for 96 yards. Dreher had a huge night defensively for the Eagles, posting 13 tackles, intercepting one pass and breaking up four more. Matthew Buswell and Jake Meckstroth added 11 tackles apiece.
The Cru finished with 511 yards of total offense, but threw four interceptions. UMHB held the ball for 33:36 of the game. La Crosse posted 329 yards of offense and turned the ball over just the one time on Shaw's game-preserving pick.
UMHB will now host McMurry University for a 6:00 PM kickoff in the American Southwest Conference opener next week at Tiger Field. The War Hawks are coming off a 24-21 win over Division I U.T.-San Antonio. The Eagles will have an open week before opening conference play against Wisconsin-Platteville on September 24
th.
