Harding run game overwhelms SAU
HARDING 54, SOUTHERN ARKANSAS 20
Harding moved one step closer to capturing the Great American Conference title by destroying another league contender Saturday.
Overpowering ground performances from Braden Jay and Blake Delacruz spearheaded the Bisons, ranked No. 6 in NCAA Division II, to a 54-20 demolition over Southern Arkansas in the Murphy
USA Classic at Memorial Stadium in El Dorado.
Th e 34-point rout marked the seventh time this season that Harding
(8-0, 8-0) has beaten a team by at least 31 points. It also served as its 12th consecutive win dating back to last season, but the Bisons were in control from the start in what may be their most impressive outing of the season.
Harding ran for an eye-popping 631 yards, with Jay and Delacruz leading the way with career-high outings. Jay, a sophomore, carried eight times for 202 yards with a touchdown, while Delacruz finished with 201 yards on 16 carries. It was the first time in program history that two Harding players ran for at least 200 yards in a game.
“To go over 600 yards versus those talented guys, it’s just so impressive,” Harding Coach Paul Simmons said of his team’s rushing tally. “That’s unbelievable because it was versus a really quality opponent. Just having a great, great plan, and I’m really proud of that.”
Delacruz also scored twice for the Bisons, as did Will Fitzhugh. In fact, five players scored a rushing touchdown in the game for Harding, which scored on eight of its 10 possessions to beat the Muleriders for the fourth time in a row. It was also the 14th win in the past 16 meetings in the series for Harding.
Kadyn Roach ran 4 times for 94 yards and scored on a 73-yard touchdown run for SAU (6-2, 6-2), which had won its previous four games to climb into a tie for second place in the GAC, but the Muleriders didn’t have an answer for the Bisons’ punishing rushing attack.
On the game’s initial possession, Harding got a 6-yard touchdown run from Delacruz, which ended an eightplay, 75-yard drive, to snatch a 7-0 lead.
Roach would later tie the game with 4:08 left in the first quarter on his long scoring run, but Fitzhugh’s 1-yard touchdown up the middle less than a minute later started a 17-point rally for Harding. Jhalen Spicer, who finished with 90 yards on 10 carries, scored from 7 yards out with 8:08 remaining in the second quarter to end a back-breaking 15-play, 99-yard march for the Bisons.
“Anytime you can go 99, that’s a big deal,” Simmons said. “I think our offense really felt like if we didn’t make mistakes, then [SAU] can’t stop us. And that was kind of the deal. The times when we punted, we had a guy fall down, had a holding penalty. … The offense really carried us [Saturday], and it was a good day for it.”
Harding eventually took a 24-7 lead into halftime following a 35-yard field goal by Grant Ennis with seven seconds left.
SAU did trim its deficit to 24-14 early in the third quarter when Jariq Scales ran through the interior of the line to score on a 28-yard run. However, the rest of the period belonged to the Bisons.
Jay responded to Scales’ score with a 66-yard touchdown run around the left side with 11:12 to go in the quarter. Delacruz, whose previous career-high in rushing yardage was the 179 yards he accumulated during Harding’s 27-16 victory over Henderson State a month ago, ran the ball on three of the Bisons’ four plays on their next possession, culminating with his 24-yard touchdown.
Andrew Miller tacked on a 5-yard score with 53 seconds remaining in the quarter to push Harding’s lead to 4514. Both scores by Delacruz and Miller came after the Bisons forced turnovers on two straight possessions.
“It really felt to me like if [SAU] could’ve just stopped our offense one time in the third quarter, they could’ve really closed that gap,” Simmons said. “I don’t know all the reasons why we just had a hard time stopping those guys, but every time we had to have a score, the offense answered. It was just big play after big play.”
O.B. Jones stopped the bleeding momentarily with 12:54 left in the fourth quarter for the Muleriders with his 30-yard touchdown pass to Matthew Whitten, but the ensuing extra-point kick was blocked and subsequently returned by the Bisons’ Ahmad Butler for two points.
Fitzhugh, who had 124 yards and 3 touchdowns in Harding’s 37-17 win over SAU last season, put a stamp on the Bisons’ win with a fouryard score with less than eight minutes to go in the game.
The Muleriders were able to generate 462 yards of offense, with 264 coming on rushing attempts. Jones added 89 yards on 14 carries, and Scales ended with 81 yards on 10 attempts.
“This victory started on Saturday night,” Simmons said, referring to his team’s 41-10 win over Ouachita Baptist last week. “We won the ballgame, but our whole deal has been how many tiny victories can we gain all week? We’ve got to beat SAU on Monday, we got to beat them on Tuesday.
“But this is a mature group. We had a giant emotional victory, and everybody was saying, ‘Coach you can’t overlook somebody.’ I’m like, ‘You don’t understand what kind of guys we have’. We had a great week, and it showed [Saturday].”