Tigers pound Muleriders

GAC COLLEGE FOOTBALL

OUACHITA BAPTIST 52, SOUTHERN ARKANSAS 24

ARKADELPHIA — Ouachita Baptist ensured there’d be no last-minute heroics this week for Southern Arkansas.

Riley Harms threw three of his four touchdown passes in the first half to stake the Tigers out to a lead it wouldn’t let go of in running past the Muleriders 52-24 on Saturday night at Cliff Harris Stadium.

The victory was the seventh in a row for OBU (3-0, 3-0 Great American Conference) over its in-state foes — the longest winning streak for the Tigers in a series that began in 1912. It was also OBU’s 15th consecutive win in league play.

“That’s a good team over there,” OBU Coach Todd Knight said of SAU. “In that first half, we had to stay wide open because [SAU] was scoring a little bit, and we weren’t tackling very good. It was kind of a penalty-fest too, and that’s unusual for us.

“But in the second half, we cleaned it up a little bit and did what we had to do to win the football game. That meant we had to run the ball a little bit when we got up.”

Kendal Givens ran 26 times for 101 yards for OBU, but Harms was a major reason why the Tigers were able to finally pull away from SAU (21, 2-1). He was 12 of 23 for 243 yards, with most of his damage coming over the first two quarters. However, it was the effectiveness of OBU’s rushing attack that made a big difference after halftime.

Givens had three touchdowns and notched 75 of his yards in the third and fourth quarters.

The Muleriders did have some success in slowing down OBU on the ground early, which is something it didn’t experience in last year’s meeting. The Tigers ran for 377 yards, with 230 of that coming from then-senior running back T.J. Cole. Givens also had 101 yards in that game as well, but the running lanes weren’t as wide Saturday until the second half.

That shifted more of the onus on Harms, who delivered.

“He’s a leader,” Knight said of his quarterback. “He’s invested in what we do, and nobody prepares better than him. He’s the Russell Wilson, he’s the Peyton Manning for us.

“I’m just so proud of him because of the way he prepares and the way he leads our football team.”

Harms threw for a career-high 283 yards with four touchdowns during a victory at Southwestern Oklahoma State on Aug. 31 and was 10of-10 passing with three more scores a week ago in a 66-0 trouncing of Northwestern Oklahoma State. In his team’s toughest test so far this season, the Nebraska native was just as effective when he had to be.

He completed 6 of his 7 pass attempts in the first quarter, one of which was an 11-yard touchdown to Garrison Jackson. In the second quarter, he had just three completions, but two of those also resulted in scores.