{"id":82787,"date":"2024-10-28T08:23:24","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T13:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=82787"},"modified":"2024-10-28T08:23:26","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T13:23:26","slug":"shane-watts-powers-tigers-to-53-9-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=82787","title":{"rendered":"Shane Watts powers Tigers to 53-9 win"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By FHSU SPORTS INFORMATION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fort Hays State posted a perfect 6-0 regular season record at home by rolling to a 53-9 win over Missouri Southern on Saturday afternoon (Oct. 26) at Lewis Field Stadium. The Tigers improved to 6-3 overall on the season and 4-3 in the MIAA with the victory, while the Lions dropped to 1-8 overall and 0-7 in the MIAA. The 44-point win was the largest in history for FHSU over MSSU and FHSU posted its first undefeated season at home since 2018, when it also went 6-0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fort Hays State finished with a season-high 520 yards of total offense, while holding MSSU to 246. The Tigers ran the ball for a season-high 301 yards and threw for 219. The last time the Tigers rushed for over 300 yards in a game was in 2021 with 334 against Northeastern State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shane Watts<\/a><\/dfn> had a huge day offensively, rushing for a career-high 201 yards and adding 58 receiving yards for 259 all-purpose yards on the day. He averaged 10.6 yards per rush, highlighted by a 79-yard touchdown run. He was the first Tiger to rush for 200 yards in a game since 2015 when Shaquille Cooper ran for 216 against Emporia State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tigers took control of the game from the outset, taking their first drive 70 yards over nine plays capped on a 9-yard touchdown run by Watts. Later in the first quarter, Watts reached the endzone again on a 28-yard touchdown reception from Caleb Heavner<\/a><\/dfn>. FHSU led 14-0 through one frame. The lead grew to 21-0 in the second quarter on an 8-yard pass from Heavner to Jayden Horace<\/a><\/dfn>. Missouri Southern picked up its first points of the game on a 33-yard field goal in the waning seconds of the half, making the score 21-3 at the break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tigers added 16 points to their lead in the third quarter. Watts broke free for his 79-yard touchdown run for the first points. A bad snap on a punt resulted in a safety for two more points. Horace nabbed his second touchdown catch on a 25-yard pass from Heavner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lions scored their only touchdown of the game with 12:41 to go in the fourth quarter on a 15-yard pass. However, the Tigers’ John Johnson<\/a><\/dfn> blocked the extra-point attempt and it flew perfectly into the arms of Trevion Mitchell<\/a><\/dfn>, who scampered 83 yards for a defensive 2-point PAT, making it 39-9 Tigers. Later, Jack Dawson<\/a><\/dfn> entered and quarterback and picked up touchdown runs of one and 21 yards to cap the scoring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watts, Heavner, Dawson, Hunter Trail<\/a><\/dfn>, and Keyan Miller<\/a><\/dfn>all contributed to the 300-plus yard rushing effort for the Tigers. Horace led the Tigers in receptions with five for 65 yards, while Jabari Lewis<\/a><\/dfn> topped him by a yard with 66 receiving yards on three catches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defensively, Johnson led the Tigers with eight tackles and an interception to go with his blocked kick on the PAT try. Makel Williams<\/a><\/dfn> had seven tackles and Mason Perez<\/a><\/dfn> added six. Gaven Haselhorst<\/a><\/dfn> and Jonah Smith<\/a><\/dfn>shared a sack. Keiyon Turner<\/a><\/dfn> also recorded an interception late in the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tigers will be on the road for their final two contests of the regular season. They head to Emporia State next Saturday (Nov. 2) for a 1 p.m. kickoff at Welch Stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By FHSU SPORTS INFORMATION Fort Hays State posted a perfect 6-0 regular season record at home by rolling to a 53-9 win over Missouri Southern… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3387,7349],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82788,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82787\/revisions\/82788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}