Box Score

ROLLA, Mo. – All throughout the 2012 season, Missouri S&T's coaching staff has been looking for that proverbial “complete game”.

It came pretty close to getting it on Saturday, as the Miners ran away from William Jewell 52-17 on Homecoming at Allgood-Bailey Stadium.  The win assured the Miners of their second straight winning season, as they improved to 6-1 overall and 4-1 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference, and gave the Miners at least six wins in their first seven games of a year for just the sixth time in school history.

After an early yip – an interception thrown by Josh Firm (Lancaster, Calif./Quartz Hill) on the Miners' opening possession – S&T seized control of matters after getting the ball right back on a Billy Foster (Antioch, Calif./Deer Valley) interception that was returned to the Cardinals' 35-yard line.  Four plays later, the Miners took the lead on a one-yard touchdown run by Curterris Golden (Chicago, Ill./John Hope).

The Miners would score on four straight possessions beginning with the Golden touchdown and got points on seven of eight possessions – not counting one play to conclude the first half – while getting a defensive score mixed in as well.

William Jewell took advantage of a short field following the ensuing kickoff into the wind to get on the scoreboard on a 33-yard field goal from Warren Frevert, but the Miners answered back with a 10-play, 75-yard drive that ended with a 10-yard touchdown pass from Firm to Joseph Hyman (Los Angeles, Calif./Palisades).  The key play in the drive was a 34-yard catch and run by tailback Scott Hendricks (Kechi, Kan./Maize HS) on a third-and-six that put the Miners at the Cardinals' 12-yard line.

S&T extended its lead on another scoring pass to Hyman early in the second quarter, covering five yards, and got a 35-yard field goal from David Druse (Coal City, Ill./Coal City HS) to take a 24-3 lead to the intermission.

Golden scored his second touchdown of the day on a four-yard run on the Miners' initial possession of the second half, which started after Frevert's punt into the wind traveled just 11 yards to allow the Miners to start at the Jewell 31.  Following the Miners' first punt of the afternoon on their next possession, a bad snap on Jewell's first play went into the end zone and was recovered by Nick Kruse (Cuba, Mo./Cuba HS) to make it 38-3.

Firm fired a five-yard touchdown pass to Adam Clark (Inglewood, Calif./University) a little over six minutes later before the Cardinals got their first touchdown of the afternoon on a 17-yard run by Thomas Cook.

Zenel Hudson (Bayshore, N.Y./Milford Academy), one of four Miner backs to get extensive work in the backfield Saturday, broke off a 38-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter to close the scoring for the Miners.

The Cardinals got their final score on a two-yard run by reserve quarterback DJ Balazs with just under five minutes remaining.

S&T finished with some of its most impressive offensive numbers of the season as it had 442 yards of total offense, including a season-high 200 yards on the ground.  The Miners also went 13-of-18 on third down plays and scored on all trips into the red zone Saturday.

Firm finished the afternoon by going 24-of-33 through the air for 230 yards, with Smook Thomas (Quincy, Fla./East Gadsden) catching eight of those passes for 56 yards in a balanced receiving effort as eight Miners caught passes in the game.  David Hughes led the ground game with 69 yards on 16 carries, while Hudson picked up 60 on four runs.

Defensively, the Miners held the Cardinals (2-5, 1-3 GLVC) to 286 yards of offense, with quarterbacks Sean Shelton and Balazs combining to complete just 18-of-38 throws for 159 yards.  Quintin Robinson (Dodge City, Kan./Dodge City) had a game-high seven tackles for the Miners, who also had two sacks to run their season total to 30.

Missouri S&T will return to action next Saturday at Quincy – who won its first game of the year Saturday by a count of 38-19 over McKendree – with the kickoff slated for noon.