By FHSU Sports Information<\/b><\/p>\n
HAYS, Kan. – Fort Hays State improved to 2-1 overall by holding off Washburn 30-24 in Hays on Saturday evening (Sept. 15). The No. 17\/16 ranked Tigers led 30-10 before a pair of late Ichabod touchdowns made the game uncomfortable with a minute to play. FHSU recovered an onside kick and ran out the clock.<\/p>\n
Turnovers were a key for the Tigers, winning the battle 4-1. The Tigers scored 14 points off turnovers compared to seven for the Ichabods, covering the difference in the final score. The Tigers used a short 33-yard field after recovering a fumbled punt in the first quarter, running the ball five times and eventually reaching the endzone on a four-yard burst by D.J. Hickman<\/a> at the 1:19 mark. That put the Tigers up 14-3 early.<\/p>\n Up 23-10 in the fourth quarter, the Tigers widened their lead benefitting from another fumble, this time on a sack by Wyatt Parker<\/a> recovered by Sheldon Schmidt<\/a>. The Tigers marched 59 yards, capping their final touchdown drive with a 17-yard touchdown pass from Jacob Mezera<\/a> to Jacoby Williams<\/a>. The 20-point margin of 30-10 was too much for the Ichabods to overcome, although they made the game interesting late.<\/p>\n A Hunter Brown<\/a>ing 1-yard touchdown run and an extra point with 6:30 remaining made the score 30-17. Then, with just over a minute remaining, Austin Tillman intercepted Mezera and returned the ball 63 yards for a touchdown. An extra-point tacked on made it 30-24, giving Washburn a chance to pull off an improbable comeback. However, the ensuing onside kick went out of bounds, allowing the Tigers to run out the clock.<\/p>\n Both teams struggled converting on third down all night, the Ichabods going just 4-of-17 (23.5 percent) and the Tigers just 3-of-16 (18.8 percent). That resulted in 17 punts between the teams. Perry Schmiedeler of Washburn averaged 44.6 yards per punt on eight attempts, while Dante Brown<\/a> averaged 43.2 yards per punt on nine attempts. Both players finished with one field goal make in the game.<\/p>\n Fort Hays State trailed only one time in the game after Washburn opened the scoring with a 43-yard Schmiedeler field goal at 9:30 remaining in the first quarter. A Mezera 26-yard touchdown pass to Harley Hazlett<\/a> put the Tigers up 7-3 at the 5:47 mark and they led the rest of the way.<\/p>\n Charles Tigner<\/a> led the Tigers in rushing with 98 yards on 20 carries, reaching the endzone once at the 5:44 mark of the second quarter. Mezera finished with 130 passing yards and two touchdowns. He became the third Tiger quarterback in history to eclipse the 6,000-yard career passing mark, joining Mike Garrison and Robert Long. Dandre Reed<\/a> led the Tigers in receptions on the night with five, while Williams had a team-high 38 yards receiving on just two catches. Chance Fuller<\/a> also took the first snaps of his career at quarterback for the Tigers, going 3-of-6 for 35 yards.<\/p>\n Connor Shedeed<\/a> led the Tiger tackling effort with 12 to go with an interception. Sterling Swopes<\/a> and Wyatt Parker<\/a> each had 1.5 sacks in the game, while Parker added an interception off a tipped pass.<\/p>\n Blake Peterson generated the majority of the offense for Washburn, passing for 124 yards and rushing for 55. James Brania-Hopp was the top receiving target for Washburn, finishing with 96 yards on eight catches. Derric McGreevy led the Ichabods in tackles with 16.<\/p>\n The Tigers head to Missouri Southern next Saturday for a 6 pm kickoff in Joplin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By FHSU Sports Information HAYS, Kan. – Fort Hays State improved to 2-1 overall by holding off Washburn 30-24 in Hays on Saturday evening (Sept.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40135,"comment_status":"open","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-40134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/fbwashburn.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40136,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40134\/revisions\/40136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}