Return home helps get Tennessee St. back on track

After seeing his team play at home just once in its first seven games this year, Tennessee State coach James Reese was relieved to have the Tigers back at the Nashville Coliseum Saturday night.

And even though it wasn't pretty at times, the Tigers finally picked up their first victory since Sept. 7 -- which was the date of their last home game -- by nudging Tennessee-Martin 26-8.

The Tigers improved to 2-6 overall and 1-1 in the OVC. The Skyhawks fell to 2-6 and 0-3.

"It was good to play at home, finally," Tennessee State coach James Reese said. "We got off to a slow start, but we were able to work out some kinks and got some big plays."

Since the Tigers still have four conference games remaining, Reese is hopeful they can bounce back and become a factor in the OVC race.

"The kids believe that," Reese said. "We have to eliminate some of the small mistakes we've had and play a whole game."

For Tennessee-Martin, despite trailing just 3-0 at halftime, it was another familiar OVC story. The Skyhawks have suffered 39 straight conference defeats, their last league victory coming in 1996 when they beat Southeast Missouri State University 7-6 in Cape Girardeau.

"It was a tough loss," Tennessee-Martin coach Sam McCorkle said. "We felt like we had a chance to win the game, not because of them, but because we're getting better.

"But I'm proud of our kids because they keep playing hard and keep getting better. We just need to get a win."

Racers in good shape

Murray State, which slipped past visiting Southeast 38-31 Saturday, appears to have a solid shot at setting up a title showdown with first-place Eastern Illinois on the final date of the regular season.

The Racers (3-4, 2-1) will be favored over Tennessee State and Tennessee-Martin before they host Eastern Illinois (5-2, 3-0) on Nov. 23. The Panthers also are likely to win their remaining conference games, meaning a Murray State victory could set up a three-way tie at the top with Eastern Kentucky (6-3, 3-1) also included.

"We're in the hunt," Murray State coach Joe Pannunzio said. "We just have to take care of business and hopefully we'll get a shot at it."

The Racers used Billy Blanchard's four touchdowns -- including a 33-yarder with 40 seconds remaining -- to knock off Southeast (5-4, 2-2), which suffered its second straight loss.

EKU defense dominates

Eastern Kentucky leads the OVC -- by far -- in virtually every major defensive category and allow an average of just 15.2 points and 250.9 yards per game.

That defense was at the top of its game Saturday as the Colonels held Tennessee Tech to 143 yards -- including minus-17 yards rushing -- in a 19-0 victory over the host Eagles (2-6, 0-3).

Sophomore defensive end Chad Dewberry recorded an unbelievable six quarterback sacks -- that's not a misprint -- and caused two fumbles during the Colonels' second shutout of the season.

Players of the week

Murray State players won two of the four weekly conference awards.

Running back Billy Blanchard was honored with the offensive award for his four-touchdown, 183-yard performance against Southeast. Blanchard scored three fourth-quarter touchdowns.

Racers punter Brian Bivens set two OVC records to take the special teams honor. His first punt traveled 90 yards, a school and conference record. He followed that with a 57-yard punt to finish the day with a 73.5 average, also school and league records.

Eastern Kentucky's Dewberry won the defensive award for his dominating performance against Tennessee Tech.

Tennessee State's Sugar Sanders was the newcomer of the week after running for 91 yards on 13 carries against Tennessee-Martin.

This week's games

After a less than full slate of games the past two weeks, every OVC team will be in action Saturday, although there will be only two conference matchups.

Eastern Illinois, coming off an open date, visits Tennessee State while Southeast Missouri hosts Tennessee Tech.

In non-league games, Eastern Kentucky visits Liberty, Murray State hosts Samford and Tennessee-Martin travels to Gardner-Webb.

Marty Mishow covers theOVC for the Southeast Missourian.