ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T hits the road for the final time in the 2015 campaign and the assignment for the Miners is taking on the Great Lakes Valley Conference leader looking to clinch its fourth straight outright league title.
The Miners will take on 18
th-ranked Indianapolis Saturday evening at Key Stadium in a 6 p.m. (Eastern time) start. S&T will be looking to give themselves a chance to tie for the GLVC title, as it will need to win Saturday and its season finale Nov. 14 against Quincy, while needing UIndy to also lose at Saint Joseph's on the final day of the season.
The Greyhounds clinched at least a share of the conference title Saturday when they routed William Jewell and the Miners lost at home to Southwest Baptist, leaving S&T at 4-4 overall and 4-2 in the GLVC heading into this weekend's contest. UIndy has won its last seven contests to go to 8-1 overall and 6-0 in league play.
ABOUT THE MINERS: Missouri S&T had a 19-point lead over Southwest Baptist with over six minutes left in the third quarter on a rainy afternoon at Allgood-Bailey Stadium, but the Bearcats scored the final 23 points of the game to upend the Miners 46-42.
S&T led 35-16 at halftime largely on the work of quarterback
Lamar Wilkes (Maryland Heights, Mo./Pattonville), who threw for 173 yards and three scores in the first 30 minutes and also had a rushing touchdown. The Miners answered an SBU score early in the second half with a 93-yard kickoff return for a touchdown by
Spencer Elrod (Lancaster, Calif./Eastside), but struggled to get any offense going after that as the Bearcats used their passing game to overcome the deficit.
Elrod finished Saturday's game with 224 all-purpose yards, the third straight game where a Miners has gone over the 200-yard mark in that department, and has 1,065 on the season. Elrod leads S&T with 33 receptions for 592 yards and five touchdowns, while
Braxton Graham (Seneca, Mo./Seneca) – who has a team-high 1,067 all-purpose yards – has 32 catches for 476 yards and three scores.
Wilkes has completed 47.4 percent of his passes on the season for 1,607 yards and 12 touchdowns, while
Dalton Major (Bourbonnais, Ill./Bishop McNamara), who finished with 98 yards on the ground Saturday, leads S&T in rushing with 484 yards on the year. The Miners are averaging 170.6 rushing yards per game.
Linebacker
Landon Compton (Lamar, Mo./Lamar) leads the S&T defense with 69 tackles, while
Austin Truvillion (Kansas City, Mo./Park Hill) has been in on 65 stops and
Nate Brown (Webb City, Mo./Webb City) on 54.
Rob Cidlik (Eureka, Mo./Eureka) leads the Miners in sacks with 5.5 and in tackles for a loss with 10.5, while
Isaac Williams (St. Louis, Mo./DeSmet Jesuit) has two of the Miners' six interceptions.
ABOUT INDIANAPOLIS: The Greyhounds, ranked 18
th in this week's American Football Coaches Association poll, won their seventh straight game Saturday at William Jewell to clinch at least a tie for the GLVC title. UIndy is also ranked seventh in the NCAA Division II Super Region 4 rankings with two weeks to play in the season.
Over the last two weeks, the Greyhounds have had huge performances by two of their skill position players. Reece Horn, who leads the GLVC with 78 receptions for 1,100 yards, earned the league's offensive player of the week award after hauling in 17 passes for 209 yards in the 63-35 win at William Jewell. A week earlier, Horn had a GLVC record 92-yard punt return against Lincoln.
In the two games, running back Andrew Walker has rushed for 240 yards and scored nine times and currently ranks second in the GLVC with 801 yards on the season. Walker is tied for the league lead with 16 touchdowns.
Quarterback Connor Barthel is the top passer in the conference in terms of percentage at 70.4 percent, with 2,244 yards, 11 touchdowns and only two interceptions in 269 attempts. Barthel was 26-of-28 for a career-high 367 yards in Saturday's win.
Linebackers Derrick Bryant and Rob Dury lead the Greyhound defense, as Bryant has recorded 82 tackles on the year and Dury has 72 with eight for a loss. Defensive tackle Lee Campbell has a team-high six sacks, while UIndy has recorded seven interceptions as a team, two coming from safety Aeneas White.
