Southeastern’s defense held 14th ranked Ouachita Baptist to just 240 yards of total offense, but a pair of big play touchdowns and special teams proved decisive in a 25-9 win for the Tigers to spoil the Savage Storm Homecoming.
After a scoreless slugfest in the opening quarter, Coach Bo Atterberry’s squad got off to a fantastic start in the second, marching 80 yards in 10 plays and finished off the drive with a 22-yard Luke Hohenberger touchdown pass to Kobe Jennings.
It looked like the Savage Storm might carry that 6-0 edge to the halftime break when things turned on a dime in the span of 97 seconds that saw Ouachita score 15 points. The first explosive play was a 79yard touchdown run by quarterback Eli Livingston and the second a 55-yard scoring toss by Livingston for 134 of their 240 total yards in the game.
A 38-yard punt return set up only an 11-yard scoring drive in the third period that extended the lead to 22-6.
Southeastern got three of those points back with a methodical 14play, 64-yard drive that stalled in the red zone but proved to be the final points for the hosts.
Ouachita tacked on a late field goal for the final margin.
The Savage Storm ended the game with 393 total yards, outgaining the Tigers by 153 yards, but 14 penalties for 109 yards also hurt the Southeastern cause.
Hohenberger tallied 205 yards of total offense while D.J. Brown added 69 yards on 20 rushing attempts.
William Wallis topped the defensive effort for the Savage Storm with nine tackles.
“I thought it was a great team effort but obviously we fell short in a couple areas and a couple of those were the explosive scoring plays in the second quarter,” Atterberry said. “I was proud of the way the guys played against a really good football team. We gave ourselves a chance. Luke (Hohenberger) coming back changed things and allowed us to move the chains. We’ve got to execute better though and avoid the penalties.”
The Savage Storm will be back on the road this week at Arkansas-Monticello looking to even their record after slipping to 2-3.
“We didn’t handle the road trip well last week to Northwestern so hopefully learned some things for this upcoming week,” Atterberry added.
Savage Storm player Matthew Nunez faces a Ouachita Baptist Tiger during Saturday’s homecoming game.
