PORTALES, N.M. – Missouri S&T's defense was unable to slow down Eastern New Mexico's highly-rated rushing attack Saturday night and ended up on the short end of the score in its season opener as the Greyhounds handed the Miners a 35-28 loss.

Eastern New Mexico, which has ranked among the top four teams in NCAA Division II in rushing in each of the last two seasons, ran for 472 yards on 77 running plays and scored four times on the ground to better the Miners' solid offensive performance on opening night.

The Miners answered an opening drive touchdown by the Greyhounds – which concluded with a nine-yard scoring run by Paul Terry – with a touchdown drive of their own as they covered 75 yards to tie the game.  Most of those yards came on the play that evened the score, as Brennan Simms (Punta Gorda, FL/Charlotte) connected with Josh Brown (Gainesville, FL/North Marion HS) on a 61-yard scoring pass midway through the first quarter.

S&T got a stop deep in its own territory on ENMU's next possession, stopping quarterback Wyatt Strand a yard short of the first down at the Miner seven-yard line on fourth down.  On the next play, Aaron Moya (Canutillo, TX/Canutillo) raced 69 yards to put S&T deep into Greyhound territory to set up a one-yard scoring run by Simms to give S&T the lead.

Eastern New Mexico, however, tied the game after a 50-yard run by Johnny Smith on a third down play set up a scoring pass from Strand to Zachery Fields on another third down play – on the only completed pass of the half by Strand.

The Miners regained the lead after overcoming a special teams mistake, as a Greyhound punt hit off a Miner and the ball was recovered by the hosts at the 25-yard line.  On ENMU's next play, Stefan Camplin (Raytown, MO/Raytown) picked off a pass to give the ball right back to S&T to launch another touchdown drive.

Deshawn Jones (Olympia Fields, IL/Rich Central) picked up the first 27 yards and final 11 on the drive, with the other 43 coming on a pass from Simms to Breon Michel (Colorado Springs, CO/Vista Ridge) to put the Miners into the red zone and set up the touchdown by Jones that tied the S&T career record for rushing touchdowns with 29.

However, the Greyhounds went on a lengthy, time-consuming scoring drive late in the first half and tied the score on Terry's second touchdown run of the night with 1:41 to go in the half.  Terry would score again late in the third quarter to put Eastern New Mexico back into the lead when he scored from two yards out.

S&T answered the Greyhound score with a touchdown of their own as it marched 93 yards to even things up, doing so when Simms threw a 27-yard touchdown pass to Cameron Clemons (St. Louis, MO/Lutheran North).

With the game even at 28, the Greyhounds went on what turned out to be the decisive scoring drive as they converted four third down plays along the way, the last of them being a six-yard touchdown run by Smith to put ENMU back in front.

The Miners came right back down the field and thanks to a pair of completions by Simms to get first downs, moved the ball inside the Greyhound 30-yard line.  However, Vicente Walker intercepted a pass inside the 10 to halt the drive with 2:35 remaining and the Miners were unable to get the ball back.

Missouri S&T finished the night with 411 yards of offense with a balanced attack, as it recorded 209 yards on the ground and 202 in the air in Simms' first start at quarterback.  Simms completed 12-of-20 passes in the game, while Jones rank for 96 yards and Moya for another 93 to pace the ground game.

Safety Justin Onwugbufor (Maize, KS/Northwest) was in on 16 tackles for the Miners and fellow safety Ryan Kirkendall (Silsbee, TX/Silsbee) made 12 stops and Tershawn Wharton (University City, MO/University City) had nine in the contest.

Missouri S&T will open its home schedule next Saturday when it hosts Azusa Pacific at 7 p.m. at Allgood-Bailey Stadium.  The Cougars also dropped their season opener Saturday in a 35-16 setback at West Texas A&M.