By FHSU SPORTS INFORMATION
Fort Hays State saw its 12-game win streak in regular season home games snapped on Thursday night (Sept. 12) at the hands of Missouri Western. The Griffons knocked off the No. 25/22 ranked Tigers by a score of 28-17, moving to 1-1 on the season. The Tigers dropped to 0-2 overall.
Fort Hays State took an early lead by scoring on its first drive of the game. Unfortunately they had to settle for three points after pushing the ball to the MWSU 2-yardline. A false start pushed the Tigers back five yards and three plays later had to settle for a 22-yard field goal from Dante Brown. It was the only scoring by either team in the opening quarter.
Dante Brown looked to extend the Tiger lead early in the second quarter, but missed a 49-yard field goal attempt. From that point, Missouri Western started to find rhythm. Wyatt Steigerwald hushed the Tiger crowd with a 37-yard touchdown pass to Damen Wheeler, Jr. at the 12:36 mark, giving Missouri Western the lead 7-3.
The momentum fully shifted to Missouri Western when a muffed punt by FHSU turned into a short field to work with at the FHSU 20-yardline. The Griffons only needed one play to reach the endzone, a 20-yard pass from Steigerwald to Kyle Berry to push their lead to 14-3 with 8:29 to go in the second quarter. Fort Hays State could not counter with any offense and Missouri Western marched 62 yards in seven plays for yet another touchdown, a 12-yard run by Shamar Griffith at the 4:07. That allowed Missouri Western to take a 21-3 lead into halftime.
The Tigers could not advance the ball past midfield on their first two drives of the second half. They finally found success on their third drive, advancing the ball to the MWSU 24-yardline, but DJ Stirgus of MWSU intercepted a Fuller pass at the goal line. Another quarter went by with no points for the Tigers.
FHSU showed a brief sign of life with 8:24 to go in the game when Fuller found Manny Ramsey for a 28-yard touchdown pass. However, the two-point conversion failed and the Griffons led 21-9.
A bad snap when the Tigers were looking to punt with 5:33 remaining in the game proved to be the nail in the coffin. Missouri Western got the ball back at the FHSU 26. The Griffons capitalized four plays later on a Markel Smith 6-yard touchdown run, pushing the score to 28-9.
The Tigers picked up one more touchdown late on a four-yard touchdown pass from Fuller to Hunter Budke, but it was too-little, too-late. The Tigers tacked on a two-point conversion to make the final score of 28-17.
Fuller threw for 333 yards for a second straight week, completing 23-of-49 attempts. Ramsey and Harley Hazlett each had five receptions, Ramsey finishing with 102 yards and Hazlett with 90. The Tigers struggled to establish a run game all night as Charles Tigner led the team with 44 rushing yards. Hayden Kreutzer led the Tiger tackling effort with nine, following by Kolt Trachsel with eight.
Steigerwald had 197 passing yards for the Griffons, completing 17-of-29 attempts. Smith ran for a team-high 84 yards and Devon Holmes had seven catches for 70 yards. Evan Chohon led the Griffons on defense with 10 tackles, while Stirgus and Sam Webb each had three pass breakups among the team’s total of 11.
This was the first home loss for the Tigers in the regular season since the 2016 season, when they fell 28-7 to a then No. 1 ranked Northwest Missouri State team that went on to win the national title.
Fort Hays State heads on the road next week to Washburn University on Saturday (Sept. 21). Kickoff is set for 1 pm.