Kingsville - The Kingsville football team was unable to get into a flow offensively, falling at home to the Central Washington Wildcats 31-0 Saturday night.
The Javelinas mustered just 129 yards of total offense in a game where their starting quarterback, sophomore
Teague Sedtal, went down with an injury in the second quarter and did not return. The loss marks the team's second in a row, dropping TAMUK's overall record to 4-3 - 3-2 in Lone Star Conference Play.
"We lost the middle eight of the game," Head Coach Michael Salinas said. "They scored with less than two minutes left in the second quarter and we needed to come out and get a stop, but offensively, we did not sustain drives, we did not get first downs, we did not convert well enough on third downs, and we didn't run the ball well enough in order to win the football game."
Senior runningback
Roger Hagan was a bright spot for the team offensively, running for 72 yards on 14 carries. The team as a whole, however, averaged just 2.5 yards per carry.
The game began as a defensive battle, which was no surprise in a matchup that pitted two of the conference's very best defenses against each other. The first nine drives of the game ended in defensive stops, including a pair of turnovers - one on a 44-yard Kingsville field goal that was blocked, and another on a strip sack that ended with Javelina possession.
The scoring finally began well past the mid-point of the second quarter when the Wildcats followed a TAMUK three-and-out with a 67-yard touchdown drive that lasted just one play. That play broke open the offense for CWU, who found the endzone on its very next drive, giving the team a 14-0 lead on the road.
The second half saw the Wildcats begin to lean on their strength: bleeding the clock. The team entered the night with the second-highest average time of possession in the nation, and it showed why in a third quarter where it allowed TAMUK to possess the ball for just 1:15 of the frame.
The ten points Central scored in the third quarter resulted from just two drives that totalled nearly 14 minutes of gametime, essentially putting the contest to bed.
"I think that's where we've got to go back to being who we say we are," Salinas said. "I thought we were going to be a little better prepared to play today but that's my fault as their head football coach and we're just going to have to do a good job re-grouping and understanding what we have to do, how we have to get it done, and meeting the standard of Javelina football."
