Southeast Missouri State foootball team snaps four-game losing streak with rout of Austin Peay

It had been more than a month since the Southeast Missouri State football team had won a game, and a raucous locker room could've been expected once the Redhawks finally got back in the win column.

That wasn't the case after Southeast snapped its four-game losing streak with a 42-7 defeat of Austin Peay (1-10, 1-7 Ohio Valley Conference) on Saturday at Houck Stadium.

"When you walk in the locker room, you'd think there'd just be people doing back flips, but there really wasn't, and man, I love seeing that because there wasn't a lot of people surprised or shocked or anything like that," Matukewicz said, noting that there was "joy" from his players. "We talked about it, and last Sunday I was more mad at myself than any of the players because I started believing, 'Well, a win verified what we'd been doing, and we lost the game,' but really when you go and watch the film we've been doing a lot of good things. All I wanted this week was do what we've done and win the turnover margin. We were able to do that today and played well."

Southeast wasted little time in taking a lead against the one-win Govs.

Austin Peay's Dakota Vincil missed a 32-yard field goal on the Govs' opening drive before the Redhawks marched 80 yards on eight plays, which included a 28-yard pass to Adrian Davis and a 23-yard pass to Ron Coleman, and scored on an 11-yard touchdown that running back DeMichael Jackson caught in the end zone after the pass intended for receiver Paul McRoberts was deflected.

Kicker Ryan McCrum's PAT put the Redhawks up 7-0 with 8 minutes, 31 seconds to play in the first quarter.

Photo by Julian Sanders

Southeast's defense forced APSU to punt on its next drive. Senior receiver Spencer Davis caught a pass from quarterback Kyle Snyder on the third play of the Redhawks' ensuing drive and ran it in up the right sideline for a career-long 71-yard touchdown with 4:33 remaining in the first to go up 14-0.

"I knew it was going to be a good play -- the way the safety and the linebacker, they fit in the box, so that's why I ran my route kind of early, get out my break fast," Davis said. "Kyle made a nice throw, and I knew no one was actually behind me, and so that's why when I caught the ball I just took off. I saw down field Paul [McRoberts] was making a nice block and I said, 'I'm not going to get caught.' The only thing going in my head was getting in the end zone."

McCrum missed a 39-yard field goal on the next drive before the Govs best scoring chance of the day.

APSU moved it to the Southeast 29 before sophomore safety Eriq Moore intercepted a Trey Taylor pass on fourth-and-9 in the end zone. A pass interference penalty on the Redhawks instead gave the Govs a first down and the ball at the 14-yard line.

The Govs reached the Southeast 4, but Moore came up with another interception that started a Redhawks drive at the 2 with 5:23 left in the half.

"We're in a zero coverage where there were five DBs on the field, and we're responsible for the five skill guys," Moore said. "I was manned up on the running back and he tried to run like a flare, but he tried coming through the line of scrimmage and it got a little clouded, but I was able to keep my eyes on him. When he came out he actually was grabbing for it, and I reached and I snatched it from him and went down."

Photo by Julian Sanders

The Redhawks needed just nine plays to move 98 yards on the ensuing drive. Jackson had a 58-yard run and ended up scoring from two yards out to give Southeast a 21-0 advantage at halftime.

The first play of the second half resulted in a 70-yard touchdown catch by McRoberts in just six seconds.

Following a Govs punt Southeast gave up its only points of the game when Snyder was intercepted by Damian Whitefield, who returned it 12 yards to make it 28-7 with 10:29 to go in the third.

Southeast's next two drives stalled and they were forced to punt for the first time in the game.

The Redhawks scored their final two touchdowns on a 13-yard pass to freshman receiver Adrian Davis with 10:50 to play and a 15-yard pass to McRoberts with 5:41 to play.

Southeast's defense, which didn't allow any points in the game, gave up just 156 yards passing and 128 yards rushing.

"This week we just really stressed on doing our assignments, whatever the play call just know what you're supposed to do," linebacker Wisler Ymonice said. "We kind of told ourselves we wanted to pitch a shutout today. ... A couple times they went down, one drive they had like 21 plays, and we didn't let up. We were like, 'Hey, just keep it going and just try to shut them out.'"

APSU was forced to punt five times in the game and completed just 4 of 17 third-down conversions.

"Our only Achilles heel has really been getting off the field on third down, and today I can say we did a better job of getting off the field on third downs," Ymonice said. "We were relentless and we fought, just like we do for every point. When third downs rolled around we just pinned our ears back, did what we had to do and got off the field."

The Govs offense hadn't been particularly successful this season. They hadn't scored more than seven points except for three games, but their highest offensive production came last week when they put up 27 points in a loss to Tennessee State.

"We knew that if they like something or if they have success with something then they're going to come back to it," Moore said. "We saw that early they had success with some plays, they came back to it and we were able to defend them better than we did the first time."

Southeast improved to 5-6 and 3-4 in conference. The Redhawks host Jacksonville State (8-1, 6-0 OVC), which clinched the OVC regular-season title with a win against Eastern Illinois on Saturday, in its final game of the season at 1 p.m. Saturday.

"It's the OVC. To me this is the SEC of DI-AA football," said Jackson, who finished with 122 yards rushing on 19 carries. "This is one of the top conferences, and you've just got to show up and play. We will be ready for Jacksonville State next week."