89th Piney Woods Game Another Spectacular
11/2/2014 7:49:00 AM | Football
Both head coaches agreed the 89th “Battle of the Piney Woods” before a record crowd at NRG Stadium was a tremendous experience.
K. C. Keeler of Sam Houston and Clint Conque of Stephen F. Austin both are in their first year at their respective institutions and had never experienced the Kats-Jacks rivalry before.
“This whole thing was well beyond what I thought it was going to be,” Keeler said of the Kats' 42-28 victory Saturday. “We were really conscious all week trying to keep our kids sort of level minded. We've probably got after them this week harder than any week we've coached them because we knew that going into this game there was going to be a lot of emotions.
“So we were really trying to hit a lot of details and those kinds of things with the guys. We came out of warm-up and hit the alums. Talk about emotion- It was so cool seeing the guys from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. It's always a brotherhood and it really got the kids fired up.”
Senior running back Keshawn Hill led the Bearkats offensively with 156 yards rushing including four touchdowns. He joined Timothy Flanders, Charles Harris and James Aston as the only Sam Houston players ever to score four rushing TDs in one game. Flanders holds the school record with five.
“There were 378 yards rushing,” Keeler said. “I thought we played a good football game against a very good opponent. It was a great game with a lot of class shown on both sides.”
Conque's Lumberjacks rallied from 35-14 down to keep the contest suspenseful in the fourth quarter. The two teams combined for 988 yards total offense.
“Sam Houston has a fine team,” Conque said. “Certainly, they deserved to win the way they played.”
Keeler talked about the Jacks as well
“They did a really good job of taking some things away from us,” Keeler said. “We kind of back to a rhythm of running the football. I thought that Phil Longo (offensive coordinator) called a great game. We were up by 21 and, all of a sudden, they came back and scored. We had a ball game again.”
Keeler had praise for his running backs.
“We have some talented running backs,” Keeler said. “Jared Johnson had 152 yards rushing and Keshawn had 160. Between the two of them, they are over 300 yards. We definitely know that our run game is developing.”
Sam Houston had not had two backs rush for more than 100 yards in the same game since the 2012 championship season. Hill was one of the two back that season two when, as a freshman, he ran for 132 yards and All-America Timothy Flanders totaled 146 in a 2012 win over Southeastern Louisiana.
Sam Houston State now is tied for first place in the Southland Conference. The Bearkats go on the road for two weeks to face Incarnate Word and Houston Baptist before returning home to play host to Central Arkansas in the regular season finale at Bowers Stadium.
