Nick Kendall
Contributing Writer
nkendall1@murraystate.edu
Murray State football lost the homecoming matchup against the Eastern Kentucky University Colonels 34-27 after a tough defensive stop.
The Racers were on the board first when Freshman kicker Zaden Webber drilled a 49-yard field goal with 10 minutes left in the first quarter.
The Colonels answered back later in the first quarter when redshirt junior wide receiver Alex Cabrera scored on a 56-yard pass from redshirt freshman quarterback Parker McKinney.
Eastern Kentucky scored two more times in the second quarter and the Racers scored once on an 18-yard pass from redshirt sophomore quarterback Preston Rice to senior wide receiver James Sappington.
Murray State was outscored 17-7 in the third quarter, but their comeback began in the fourth.
Redshirt senior linebacker Kendrick Catis started the fourth quarter with a 56-yard pick-six, cutting the Racers’s deficit to 10.
Four minutes later, Webber made another field goal, this time from 19 yards.
The Racer defensive made multiple stops and the offense went back to work and got back into the red zone for one last try.
Rice had a decent look at redshirt sophomore wide receiver LaMartez Brooks, but overthrew the ball into the hands of Eastern Kentucky’s redshirt senior defensive back Frank Sumpter, killing the Racers’s shot at the tie or win.
As most coaches are with losses, Head Coach Mitch Stewart was not happy with the outcome of the game.
“We’ve got to play better all four quarters of the football game,” Stewart said. “We’ve got to put together a game, offensively, defensively and special teams, solid performance in all three phases if you’re going to beat a football team like that and we didn’t do that.”
Stewart really appreciated the comeback efforts his team made.
“We tried to rally at the end and [I’m] very proud, obviously, of the effort at the end of the game,” Stewart said. “When a team like that comes in with the ability to run the football like they can, and you hold them to less than 150 yards or something total rushing, that’s pretty sporty.”
Stewart wants the team to become more consistent for the upcoming games.
“You know, there’s two things you do: you get defined or you develop,” Stewart said. “We’re going to choose to develop because you can learn an awful lot from games like this, so we’ve got to do that tomorrow when we bring the boys in.”
The Racers’s next game is at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 26, at Burgess-Snow Field to take on Jacksonville State University.