Bulldogs Fall in Finale, 13-7

November 11, 2006

Reshard Dudley

COMMERCE, Texas – Southwestern Oklahoma State’s hope to put the final exclamation point on what had been its most successful football season in years evaporated as the Bulldogs lost 13-7 to Texas A&M-Commerce. The Bulldogs, who had hoped to celebrate a share of the Lone Star Conference North Division title with a win against the Lions, now must settle for a share of second place and a 6-5 overall record.

Still even with the disappointing loss, the Bulldogs under coach Ryan Held made remarkable improvement from a team that had won just one game in each of the last two years.

“If you want to win championships, you have to play that caliber of football. We simply didn’t do it today,” Held said. “I felt we were a little on edge in the first half. We settled down in the second half but still didn’t take advantage of the opportunities that we had.”

SWOSU did have one last chance to win the game trailing by 13-6. The Bulldogs moved to the Lions’ 39-yard line in the final seconds. Quarterback Jimmy Sangster’s hail mary pass was intercepted in the endzone as time expired and the Lions let out a collective sigh of relief.

Jon Patterson

The Bulldogs sputtered offensively until the fourth quarter when Sangster and his teammates put together a 10-play, 92-yard drive for SWOSU’s only score. The big play in the drive was a 39-yard pass to Tyson Bryant to put the Bulldogs in TAMC territory. Sangster connected with Johnathan Haggerty on a 18-yard touchdown pass and SWOSU had cut the lead to 13-6 with 9:12 remaining. The Sangster-to-Haggerty touchdown pass was the seventh time this year the two have combined for a score.

Sangster ended the day completing 15-of-29 passes for 148 yards while Haggerty led all receivers with five catches for 58 yards and a score.

TAMC, which improved to 5-5 on the year, scored the game’s first touchdown when Cliff Edwards powered in from the one-yard line with 9:12 remaining in the second quarter. Edwards carried the bulk of the offensive load for the Lions rushing a total of 33 times for 115 yards

The Lions added a pair of second half field goals by Rusty Holmes of 34 yards and 37 yards to go up 13-0. The second field goal came after the Lions recovered a fumble by the Bulldogs on the kickoff as the SWOSU 27-yard line.