SFU marched to their second victory of the season off of a dominant second half, defeating Great Northwest Athletic Conference rivals, the South Dakota School of Mines (SDSM) Hardrockers, who are ranked seventh in the conference.
Quarterback Ryan Stanford had his first start in three weeks, as head coach Jacques Chapdelaine started backup Tyler Nickel the last two games. Throwing for 372 yards, and going 28 for 36 on pass attempts, Stanford proved that he is still the team’s go-to quarterback.
In spite of the end result, the first half exposed some Clan weaknesses, with the team down 31-26 at halftime. Scoring was not an issue, but defensive lapses were.
SFU won the coin toss to start, and elected to receive. However, a fumble gave the ball to the Hardrockers, who promptly opened up the scoring with a touchdown. Although they answered back quickly with a field goal and touchdown for a momentary lead, the Clan never seemed in control.
The tide began to turn for SFU at the end of the second quarter, as Cole Tudor ran the ball in for a touchdown with 39 seconds left in the half — only down by five points, this play set the tone for SFU’s second half teardown of South Dakota.
The beginning of the second half mirrored the start of the game, but this time in the Clan’s favour: SFU middle linebacker Jordan Herdman sacked Hardrocker quarterback Trenton McKinney, forcing a fumble, which led to a Clan touchdown 1:04 into the half.
With the touchdown, SFU took the lead, at 32-31, which they would keep for the rest of the game. The Clan did not allow the Hardrockers a single point more, shutting them out to a score of 27-0 in the half.
In the third quarter alone, SFU scored 20 straight points, with wide receiver Lemar Durant taking in the second and third touchdowns of the quarter.
He nearly made it three straight touchdowns at the start of the fourth quarter — catching a 30-yard pass from Stanford — but SFU took a penalty on the play and it did not count.
As a testament to the Clan’s play, Justin Buren made up for the mistake, catching a 35-yard touchdown pass, notching the final points of the game, with the score at 53-31.
The Hardrockers did not throw in the towel, though, and appeared to be making their way to their first touchdown of the half with 60 yards in a single drive, but Tolbert forced a fumble, which Jordan Herdman recovered, sealing the win.
Jordan Herdman once again led the team in tackles with 12.5, while Tudor and Stephen Spagnuolo led the team in rushing yards with 96 and 86 yards respectively.
One of the highlights of the game was Justin Buren, who replaced injured wide receiver Kyle Kawamoto the previous weekend; he put up a stellar performance, notching 123 receiving yards, and two touchdowns, leading the team.
“We knew Justin [Buren] was a very capable player in training camp, he just didn’t have a lot of experience, which he is gaining rapidly now,” said Chapdelaine. “The last couple of weeks have been very good for him.”
Chapdelaine attributed much of his team’s second half resurgence to the previous weekend’s loss to Division I Idaho State Bengals.
“We just executed honestly,” he explained. “We played a very tough opponent last week, and although the score did not flatter us, we learned a lot of things in that game that we did not apply in the first half. In the second half, it was important for the guys to apply what we had learned, how we had gotten better.”
Chapdelaine stressed the need for greater consistency from the team: “We need to be better at understanding the little details of the game. This is not high school football; guys have got to prepare in a way I don’t think they have [. . .] in the past.”
Although their overall record is 2-5, the Clan are now 2-1 in the GNAC, and move to third place in the conference.
