ABILENE, Texas – Hardin-Simmons' football team rolled up 681 yards of offense en route to a 55-10 win over Louisiana College in the American Southwest Conference opener at Shelton Stadium on Saturday.
The Cowboy defense forced three first-half turnovers and had a shutout until early in the fourth quarter. The defense held the Wildcats to 299 yards and to just 3.5 yards per play in the contest.
Freshman quarterback Landry Turner was on point and spread the ball around all day as he completed 18-of-25 passes for 383 yards and five touchdowns. Jaquan Hemphill rushed 16 times for 154 yards and a touchdown.
LC opened the game with the ball and put together a 15-play, 56-yard drive but Chris Miller and Josh White combined to tackle running back Donyell Young for a loss on fourth down to get a stop. Neither team was able to get on the scoreboard until Turner bought some time with his feet and found Colton Kent open on a third-and-14 play. Kent raced 76 yards for the touchdown with :56 to play in the first quarter.
On the ensuing possession, Miller picked off Wayne Griffin on the final play of the first quarter setting the Cowboys up at the LC 23. HSU punched it in three plays later when Turner hit Alex Bell on a perfectly-placed 17-yard TD pass.
After each team punted and had an interception, the Cowboys struck quickly again as Turner hit Devonte' Walker on a 71-yard pass from the Cowboys' own 2-yard line. Two plays later Turner hit Reese Childress for a 12-yard touchdown pass.
The defense forced another LC punt and the Cowboys struck big again as Turner hit Walker for a 75-yard touchdown. The PAT was no good and HSU led 27-0 with 2:34 to play in the half. The defense forced another stop when Jim LaFond had a strip sack and Heriberto Elizondo recovered it to give the Cowboys the ball in LC territory.
Turner made the Wildcats pay as he hit Hemphill for an 11-yard touchdown pass with :40 to play in the half for a 34-0 lead at halftime.
A nice Alex Bell kickoff return set the Cowboys up at the 49-yard line on the opening drive of the second half. Hemphill raced 34 yards to the 1-yard line when the ball was punched out of his arms by Doriel Yeager and it went through the end zone for a touchback. The defense quickly got the ball back to the offense.
This time, Hemphill had all 56 yards from scrimmage in the drive and he took it in from 13 yards out for his second touchdown of the day. Eli Peterson added a 1-yard touchdown run later in the third quarter to give the Cowboys a 48-0 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
LC got on the board with a Curtis Sebren 28-yard field goal :21 into the fourth quarter. HSU responded with a 22-yard Kavan Johnson touchdown run to make it 55-3. LC scored its only touchdown of the day on a 29-yard touchdown pass from Griffin to Riley DiMaggio with 1:45 to play.
Josh White led the defense with 12 tackles and Chris Miller had seven tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss and had an interception for the HSU defense. Joshua Pickett had 11 tackles for LC.
D'Ondre Joseph was 9-for-19 passing on the day and Wayne Griffin completed 11-of-28 passes for 102 yards. Leondre James had nine catches for 77 yards for LC.
HSU will hit the road next week for the first time this season with a 1 p.m. game at Howard Payne. HSU is 2-0 on the year and 1-0 in conference play. LC fell to 1-1 overall and 0-1 in league play.
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