ARLINGTON – After beginning the season 2-0 and climbing to No. 14 in the polls, the Texas A&M-Kingsville football team was handed a 40-10 loss by West Texas A&M Saturday at Cowboys Stadium in the final game of the Lone Star Football Festival.

Nothing went right for the Javelinas as they lost the turnover battle 3-1 for the first time this season. West Texas turned two second half fumbles into 14 points and added a late sack as they broke open a game that was 10-3 at the intermission. After playing stifling defense the first two weeks of the season, the Javs also struggled in stopping the Buffs.

West Texas A&M quarterback Dustin Vaughan threw for 250 yards and three scores. He completed 19 of 29 passes and threw scoring passes of 13 yards to Trevor Hammargren and 32 yards and four yards to Lance Ratliff. The win pushes the Buffs to 2-1 overall and 1-0 in the Lone Star Conference, while the Javelinas failed to follow up on a big 16-13 road win at Abilene Christian last week, falling to 2-1 and 1-1.

The Javelinas have another battle next week with preseason favorite Midwestern State coming to Javelina Stadium. The 7 p.m. game will be on Fox Sports Southwest.

West Texas A&M never trailed, taking a 7-0 lead on the Vaughan-to-Hammargren pass,led 10-3 at the break and pushed the lead to 24-3 late in the third quarter. Ratliff finished the game with three catches for 76 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

Kingsville appeared to have gotten back into the game momentarily early in the fourth quarter when Sherman Batiste capped a 15-play, 75-yard drive with a 6-yard scoring catch from Nate Poppell to cut the WT lead to 24-10.

But the Buffs answered with a six-play, 83-yard drive that was capped by Khriy Robinson's 7-yard scoring run, pushing the WT lead to 31-10 with 6:36 to play. Less than 45 seconds later, Chris Metcalf picked up a fumble and returned it 25 yards for a score to push the lead to 38-10, and Shane Sobnosky dropped Kingsville backup quarterback Bryan Ehrlich in the end zone for a safety with 1:24 to play to put an end to the scoring.

Poppell finished the game 19 for 32 with one interception, 188 yards and touchdown. Batiste caught six passes for 86 yards and one score, while Randall Toney carried the ball 10 times for 42 yards. Jeremy Aguilar had nine tackles.