Aggies Rout Texas

Goodwell, Okla.—This year’s homecoming football game was one to remember for the Aggies as they dominated the Steers of Texas College from start to finish. The Aggies won in blowout fashion, 41-0, winning for the second week in a row.

After a slow start last week against Wayland Baptist, the Aggies regrouped at home with all guns blazing en route to scoring 27 points in the opening quarter. The defense went to work early as defensive linemen Glen Bonner and Courtney Stinnett combined for a quarterback sack that forced the Steers to punt to the Aggies. Junius Champagne came out of the gates running, using his patented elusiveness to break runs of four, eight, and 22 yards. A week after passing for over 400 yards and five touchdowns, as well as being named Player of the Week in the state of Oklahoma, Caleb Holbrook picked up where he left off, scoring on an eight yard run.

The Darkside defense continued their dominance forcing Texas College to another 3-and-out as the high speed offense again found itself with an opportunity to score. Holbrook wasted no time as he completed a pass to Rod Moore who raced down the sideline for 49 yards to the one-yard line. Kameron Young picked up his sixth touchdown of the season as he powered his way in to make the score 13-6.

During the ensuing kickoff, Gabriel Ortega booted a kick that the defense could not handle for the second week in a row, and the Aggies’ James Cameron recovered the loose ball to put it right back in the hands of the offense. Chris McClendon then got things going as he led and finished the drive with a 19 yard rushing score. The Aggies scored their final touchdown of the quarter as McClendon found the end zone for his second score of the game from three yards out.

The Next drive for the Steers proved to be their most successful as they picked up their first first-down of the game with just under a minute remaining in the opening quarter. The drive began to move down the field until Dominique Guest came away with a timing strip, and senior cornerback Keidrick Brewster recovered and returned it 14 yards to the OPSU 44, highlighting his last homecoming game and placing the icing on the cake as it also happened to be his birthday. The Aggie offense would cool down in the second quarter however, as they turned the ball over on three consecutive drives entering halftime with a 27-0 advantage. The Steers were held to an abysmal 32 total yards in the first half while the Aggies compiled 343 total yards of offense.

Texas College came out of halftime inspired as they gained 18 yards on their first play, and looked to get things going. The Darkside had other plans as cornerback Jamel Major came away with a momentum-shifting strip of the Steers’ quarterback at the OPSU 15 yard line.

The low point in the game, however, came midway through the 3rd quarter as the stadium struck dead silence when Junius Champagne lay on the field after another elusive run with an apparent leg injury. Champagne was encouraged and given high fives by each Aggie teammate as he was carted off the field. This seemed to spark the offense as the Aggies used an 11-play, 70- yard drive capped by a Holbrook pass to Jemine St. Louis to score from 15 yards out. The Darkside Defense wasn’t done either and came away with another sack-strip-return combination. Royce Asi recovered the football and returned it 10 yards to the Steers’ 13 yard line. Holbrook then found Jacob Jandt on an eight yard touchdown reception to make it 41-0.

The Aggies offense gained 551 yards of total offense for the second week in row and the defense played lights out only allowing 125 yards of offense. They have out-scored their opponents 104-21 in the stretch averaging 52 points per game. Holbrook had another exceptional game completing 19-27 passes for 254 yards along with two touchdowns and an interception. McClendon also played well as he eclipsed the century mark carrying 15 times for 106 yards. Jamal White also contributed with seven receptions for 44 yards. The offensive line also had a big game led by seniors Marcus Dimando and Cameron Hickey only giving up one sack in the last two contests.

The Darkside defense played its first complete game of the season as they dominated against both the pass and run game of the Steers. Glen Bonner and Allen Maxime both led with four tackles and 1.5 sacks each. Isaia Vimoto also contributed one sack, and safety John Libby recorded his first interception of the season.

Coach Gaskamp was also impressed with the defense saying, " We fed off of the energy of our crowd on the ‘Get Rowdy’ downs and were able to get a number of three and outs to get off of the field and get the ball back to the offense. Offensively we should be really happy when we score over 40 points and have 550+ of total offense but we did not play as well as we should have in the second and fourth quarters. We made a number of great plays in our special teams including the fumble recovery of the sky kick we hit in the first quarter that gave us great field position and momentum throughout the game. Our team has to quit making the silly penalties on things we can control to be able to beat a very good Bacone team next Saturday in Muskogee."

The Aggies find themselves on the road again this week traveling to Muskogee, Okla. to take one Bacone College on Saturday, Oct. 19 at 2 p.m.