Defense delivers late stop to preserve the victory

~ Southeast handed Indiana State its 30th loss in 31 tries.

As evenly played as the game had been most of the night, it was probably fitting that Southeast Missouri State and Indiana State took things down to the wire.

"I said it was going to be a battle," Southeast center Paul McGuire said. "I knew both teams would play really hard and give it everything they had."

McGuire, who played for the Sycamores in 2005 before transferring to Southeast, was right on the money.

It was indeed a battle at Houck Stadium on Saturday -- and the Redhawks came out on top.

Teammates grabbed wide receiver Miles Edwards after he caught Southeast's only touchdown Saturday.

Southeast built a 10-point halftime lead and withstood a late ISU surge to post a 13-10 victory that moved the Redhawks to 2-1 entering the start of Ohio Valley Conference play.

ISU (0-3) has now lost 30 of its past 31 games.

"We played hard on both sides of the ball and it's nice to come away with a win," said Southeast freshman wide receiver Miles Edwards, who scored his first collegiate touchdown.

Looking at the final statistics, there was little to separate the teams.

Southeast had the edge in total yardage, but barely at 360 to 355. ISU had more first downs, but again barely at 22 to 21.

An area where the Redhawks had a big advantage was turnovers as they recovered three fumbles while committing no turnovers.

One of ISU's fumbles led to three early Southeast points, while another might have prevented a Sycamores touchdown as Pat Christian recovered at Southeast's 3-yard line with the Redhawks leading 13-3 in the third quarter.

In the last two games -- both wins -- the Redhawks have only one turnover, after committing six in a season-opening loss at Division I-A Cincinnati.

"We're making progress," Southeast coach Tony Samuel said. "We are maturing."

Samuel figures it was partly because of that developing maturity that the Redhawks were able to hold off the Sycamores at the end.

Southeast looked to be in good shape with a 13-3 lead -- that was the halftime score -- and less than five minutes remaining.

But ISU's Ryan Patrick returned a punt 42 yards to the Southeast 49, and a personal foul penalty against the Redhawks tacked on another 15 yards.

The Sycamores found the end zone in one play as Reilly Murphy hit Rafael Price on a 34-yard touchdown pass with 4 minutes, 13 seconds left.

Southeast failed to get a first down and was forced to punt.

Doug Spada, who made both of his field-goal attempts -- from 38 and 25 yards -- had an impressive night punting with a 43.8-yard average. But he hit his only poor punt, a 31-yarder that went out of bounds at the ISU 46 with 3:11 remaining.

That's when Southeast's defense, which stiffened all night -- besides the touchdown, ISU had four other drives that reached inside the 25 but produced just three points -- came up big a final time.

Murphy lost a yard on a first-down scramble, threw incomplete then lost four yards on a Hannibal Vaivao sack.

That left ISU facing fourth-and-15, where another incompletion gave the ball back to the Redhawks with 2:38 left and ISU out of timeouts.

"I was worried they would at least be able to drive for a field goal," Christian said.

Southeast tailback Timmy Holloman, who rushed for 141 yards on 33 carries, gained 16 yards on two attempts. The Redhawks were then able to take three knees and run out the clock.

"I thought we did some good things in tough situations," Samuel said.

Leading 6-3 late in the first half, the Redhawks scored their lone touchdown on a 67-yard drive that took 1:14 and ended with Edwards catching a 22-yard pass from Houston Lillard with 7.1 seconds left.

"It was exciting," said Edwards of his first Southeast TD.

And it probably wouldn't have happened if not for a curious twist.

After Southeast picked up a first down at the ISU 22, Lillard spiked the ball with 12 seconds left. The Redhawks were out of timeouts.

Samuel sent out his field goal unit -- but ISU called a timeout. That gave the Redhawks time to think about taking a shot into the end zone, which they did as Edwards came down with a nice pass in traffic.

"I was a little nervous that we could handle that situation. I wanted to make sure we came away with some points," Samuel said. "But after the timeout, we talked it over."

It wound up being the difference in a game that, not surprisingly, was never secure until the very end.