Redhawks drop home finale

Southeast Missouri State had hoped to play spoiler.

Instead it was Tennessee-Martin that spoiled the Redhawks' Senior Day.

And in the process the Skyhawks set up a winner-take-all matchup for the Ohio Valley Conference championship.

UTM pulled away from a three-point halftime lead to ease past Southeast 31-21 on a blustery Saturday afternoon at Houck Stadium.

"It's kind of disappointing," Southeast freshman quarterback Matt Scheible said. "Senior Day, we wanted to let the seniors go out on a good note."

CHUCK WU ~ cwu@semissourian.comSoutheast freshman quarterback Matt Scheible breaks a tackle and runs in for a touchdown during Saturday's game against Tennessee-Martin at Houck Stadium.

While Southeast (3-8, 1-6) dipped into a last-place OVC tie, UTM (8-3, 6-1) closed in on a conference championship and the league's automatic playoff berth.

The Skyhawks, ranked 20th and 21st in the two major Division I-AA polls, end the regular season Saturday at home against Eastern Kentucky, which is also 6-1 in the OVC and tied with the Skyhawks for first place.

Saturday's winner captures the OVC title.

"We're happy to have a one-game season," UTM coach Jason Simpson said.

Simpson was disappointed that UTM committed three turnovers. All came deep in Southeast territory and might have prevented the Skyhawks from breaking open things earlier.

But Simpson knew the Skyhawks were in a dangerous position to begin with since so much was riding on the outcome for them.

"No question it was a trap game, from the standpoint we had everything to lose and they didn't," Simpson said. "We turned the ball over too much."

Said UTM quarterback Cade Thompson, who threw two touchdown passes and now has an OVC-leading 22 TD tosses: "The pressure was pretty high. It's kind of make or break right now."

Like Simpson, Southeast coach Tony Samuel lamented some mistakes the Redhawks made, particularly a first-half interception and a third-quarter blocked punt that helped give UTM some breathing room.

Southeast senior quarterback Houston Lillard was picked off early in the second quarter, which set up UTM at the Redhawks' 24-yard line. The Skyhawks scored on the next play to go ahead 10-0.

The Redhawks closed to within 10-7 at halftime as Scheible led an impressive drive that ended with his 4-yard touchdown run.

UTM put together a long drive on its first possession of the second half to go up 17-7, then the Skyhawks blocked a Doug Spada punt deep in Southeast territory. The Skyhawks took over at the 4-yard line and punched it in to lead 24-7.

"We got that punt blocked ... it surely didn't help," Samuel said. "The momentum swung on that and we had to take some chances."

Scheible, who took over for Lillard early in the second quarter after Lillard apparently injured a knee, played the rest of the way and led two more touchdown drives.

Senior tailback Timmy Holloman's 10-yard run with a little more than 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter made it 24-14.

Then came one of those chances Samuel talked about.

Southeast recovered an onside kick, only the recovery came about a half-yard short of the required 10 yards.

UTM took over at the Southeast 39. The Skyhawks lost a fumble inside the 5, but by that time less than seven minutes remained.

Which led to another chance Southeast took as Spada faked a punt on fourth-and-6 from his 9. Spada never got close to the first down as he gained a yard.

UTM scored on the next play to go ahead 31-14 and end any suspense. Southeast added a touchdown in the final minute to round out the scoring.

"It's definitely disappointing," said defensive end Ben Gugler, one of 17 Southeast seniors who played his final home game. "Our team played really hard. We fought.

"They're a good team, tops in the conference. They had good players on both sides of the ball."

While UTM will play for a conference title Saturday, Southeast will play for pride when it ends the season at Austin Peay.

"We want to practice hard this week and hopefully come out with a win," Gugler said.