Redhawks' effort was worthy of a victory

Even though the Southeast Missouri State football team had posted consecutive upset wins the previous two times it played at Eastern Kentucky, the odds of the Redhawks making it three in a row appeared pretty slim.

But somebody must not have told the Redhawks about that.

In by far their best performance of the season, the Redhawks battled the heavily favored Colonels tooth and nail all the way down to the final seconds Saturday night.

It's just a shame the Redhawks could not finish off the job, because after all they've been through so far this year, they sure could have used it.

A 23-yard touchdown pass on fourth down with 1.4 seconds left stunned the Redhawks 33-32, as they remained winless on the season.

Sure, it was another defeat for Southeast. And I've criticized the Redhawks' play in this column on more than one occasion.

But I simply can't do that this time. With EKU notoriously tough at home and still very much in the hunt for the Ohio Valley Conference title, and with Southeast having played none of its six previous opponents closer than 14 points, I fully expected the Redhawks to get blistered.

To the Redhawks' credit, they played a gritty, determined game -- and the fact they had no turnovers for the first time this season didn't hurt.

With true freshman tailback Tim Holloman displaying ankle-breaking moves on his way to a brilliant performance, and with quarterback Mike Haley showing plenty of poise, Southeast's offense clicked for one of the few times this year.

And defensively, even though the Colonels made quite a few big plays, the Redhawks hung tough and even came up with several apparent game-saving stops on EKU's final drive -- only to see the Colonels come through on their last chance.

I truly felt for the Redhawks as I made my way around the locker room to grab interviews following the contest, because maybe for the first time this year, they had lost a game they probably deserved to win -- and they had left everything on the field in the process.

The bottom line, however, is that Southeast is 0-7 overall -- the program's first such start since 1999, the year before current coach Tim Billings took over the program -- and 0-4 in OVC play.

But perhaps there is some light at the end of the tunnel after all.

After a brutal nonconference schedule that featured three games the Redhawks were almost certain to lose, they have also to date faced several of the OVC's top teams.

But the final four games of the season -- beginning with Saturday's homecoming contest against a Murray State squad that is surprisingly mired at the bottom of the OVC standings along with Southeast, appear to be ones that there is no reason the Redhawks shouldn't have a shot at winning, especially if they perform like they did Saturday.

Of course, by the same token, those remaining four OVC opponents -- which include Tennessee-Martin, Tennessee State and Tennessee Tech -- are probably looking at Southeast the same way, figuring there is no reason they shouldn't be able to beat the Redhawks.

What has transpired so far is in the past, and the Redhawks can't do anything about it. But they do have an opportunity to at least salvage something from a season that Billings was confident would produce considerably improved results from last year's 3-8 record, including 3-5 in the OVC.

At the very least, the Redhawks need to finish strong to make sure they don't end up with one of their worst records in quite a while -- or even in the history of the program.

The last time Southeast won as few as two games was in 1992, and the most recent one-victory season was in 1984.

And, if the Redhawks were to do the unthinkable -- go winless -- you'd have to go all the way back to 1948, when Southeast went 0-7-2. The last Southeast squad to finish without a win or a tie was the 1920 team that lost all four of its games.

The current Redhawks have the next four weeks to make sure they don't earn a spot in Southeast football history -- in a way they would rather have absolutely no part of.

Saturday's performance was certainly encouraging, but Southeast also played some heavily favored opponents tough earlier in the season, then went out and floundered in ensuing games.

We'll see how much the Redhawks are able to build on Saturday's showing.

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I'm sure Cardinals fans were heart-broken by the way the year ended, with St. Louis being bounced by Houston in the National League Championship Series.

But there is no question the Astros were the better team over those six games, with their pitching -- led by Roy Oswalt -- pretty much shutting down a St. Louis offense that simply could not get much going the entire series.

It's a shame the Cardinals weren't healthier for the NLCS, but to their credit, they refused to use injuries as an excuse, even though that was certainly a factor.

But maybe the biggest factor in the Cardinals losing was Oswalt, who simply dominated them during two victories, including Wednesday's clincher.

In fact, had Albert Pujols not delivered Monday's incredible ninth-inning home run, the Cardinals would have lost in five games and the series would not have even returned to Busch Stadium.